North Macedonia contains 2.08 million people according to the 2021 census, down from 2.1 million in 2002. Ethnic Macedonians constitute 58.4 percent of the population. Albanians form 24.3 percent, concentrated in Tetovo, Gostivar, and western municipalities bordering Kosovo and Albania. Turks represent 3.9 percent, Roma 2.5 percent, Serbs 1.3 percent, Bosniaks 0.8 percent, and Vlachs 0.5 percent. The population density stands at 82.6 people per square kilometer. Skopje holds approximately 544,000 residents, making it ten times larger than Bitola, the second city with 74,000. Ohrid municipality contains 42,000 people, though the lakeside town center itself holds fewer than 30,000. Albanian serves as a second official language in municipalities where Albanians exceed 20 percent of the local population, codified in the 2001 Ohrid Framework Agreement that ended seven months of armed conflict between ethnic Albanian insurgents and state forces. The Macedonian Orthodox Church claims adherence from approximately 65 percent of the population, while Islam accounts for roughly 33 percent, practiced primarily by Albanians, Turks, and Bosniaks. Macedonian language uses a Cyrillic alphabet standardized in 1945 with 31 letters, distinct from but related to Bulgarian and Serbian Cyrillic scripts.
The territory of North Macedonia sat at the northern edge of ancient Macedon, the kingdom of Philip II and Alexander the Great, though the core of that kingdom centered further south in what is now Greek Macedonia. Heraclea Lyncestis near Bitola was founded by Philip II around 358 BCE as a garrison town. The Romans conquered the region in 168 BCE after defeating the Macedonian kingdom at the Battle of Pydna, incorporating it into the province of Macedonia. Stobi, located at the confluence of the Crna Reva and Vardar rivers near modern Gradsko, became a significant city on the Via Egnatia, the Roman road linking the Adriatic to Byzantium. Archaeological excavations at Stobi since 1924 have revealed a theater, baptistery, and multiple basilicas dating from the 4th to 6th centuries CE. Slavic tribes migrated into the Balkans during the 6th and 7th centuries, mixing with the existing populations. The First Bulgarian Empire controlled much of the region from the late 7th century until the Byzantine reconquest under Basil II, who defeated Bulgarian Tsar Samuel in 1014 at the Battle of Kleidion near Strumica. Byzantine sources state Basil blinded 14,000 Bulgarian soldiers, leaving one man in every hundred with one eye to guide the others back to Samuel, who died of a stroke upon seeing them.
Ohrid emerged as an ecclesiastical center under Clement of Ohrid and Naum of Preslav, disciples of Saints Cyril and Methodius who were expelled from Great Moravia in 886. Clement established a literary school in Ohrid that produced Glagolitic and Cyrillic manuscripts. The Church of Saint Panteleimon at Plaošnik in Ohrid, rebuilt in 2002 on the site identified through excavations as Clement's original church, contains his relics returned from Rome. The Archbishopric of Ohrid functioned from 1019 to 1767 as an autonomous Orthodox church under the Ecumenical Patriarchate, covering an area far larger than modern North Macedonia. The Ottoman Empire conquered the region in the late 14th century, with Skopje falling in 1392 and Ohrid in 1395. Under Ottoman rule until 1912, much of the population converted to Islam, particularly among Albanians, though Orthodox Christianity persisted. The 1689 raid by Austrian General Enea Silvio Piccolomini on Skopje resulted in widespread destruction and an outbreak of cholera that killed Piccolomini himself. The Great Fire of Skopje in 1689 is often attributed to this Austrian raid, though some historians place a major fire later.