North Macedonia
North Macedonia is a country in Southeast Europe bordering with Kosovo to the northwest, Serbia to the north, Bulgaria to the east, Greece to the south, and Albania to the west. Skopje is the capital and largest city with a 2.06 million population. The residents are a South Slavic people, with Albanians forming the other largest minority, followed by Turks, Romani, Serbs, Bosniaks, and Aromanians. The history of the region begins with the kingdom of Paeonia, a mixed Thraco-Illyrian polity. The Romans conquered the region in the second century BC, then the area was incorporated into the kingdom of Macedonia in the fourth century BC. The area remained part of the Byzantine Empire, but was often raided and settled by Slavic tribes beginning in the 6th century of the Christian era. Following centuries of contention between the Bulgarian, Byzantine, and Serbian Empire, it was part of the Ottoman dominion from the mid-14th until the early 20th century, following the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913 it came under Serbian rule and in 1945 it was established as a state of communist Yugoslavia, which it remained until its independence in 1991.