Pirin Macedonia (region)
It covers an area of about 6,798 km2 which is 10.18% of the geographical region Macedonia. One of the regional centers is Blagoevgrad, also known as Gorna Dzumaya, the old name of the city. The region is bordering with Kyustendil Province and Sofia Province on the north, Pazardzhik Province and Smolyan Province on the east, Greece on the south and Republic of Macedonia on the west. The population is estimated around 325.000 people.
Macedonia naming dispute
A 22-meter tall statue, "Man on a Horse", depicting Alexander the Great, was erected in 2011 in Skopje, the capital city of the Republic of Macedonia, as part of a historical public arts building campaign. Greece scornfully characterised the effort, with the foreign ministry commenting on the size of the statue as "inversely proportional to seriousness and historical truth". The project received criticism by the European Union, calling it "not helpful" as well as by Skopje architects and ethnic Macedonian academics and politicians commenting on the aesthetic outcome and the semantics of such a move.