Macedonia (Greece)
Macedonia (; , "Makedonía" ) is a geographic and former administrative region of Greece, in the southern Balkans. Macedonia is the largest and Greek region, with a population of 2.38 million in 2017. The region is highly mountainous, with most major urban centres such as Thessaloniki and Kavala being concentrated on its southern coastline. Together with Thrace, and sometimes also Thessaly and Epirus, it is part of Northern Greece. It also contains Mount Athos, an autonomous monastic region of Greece.
Blagoevgrad Province
Total population (2011 census): 323 552
Ethnic groups (2011 census):
Identified themselves: 283,556 persons:
The issue of the current number of ethnic Macedonians in the province is complicated. In 2008, the local ethnic Macedonian political activist Stojko Stojkov, head of the United Macedonian Organization Ilinden–Pirin, claimed the number of the native ethnic Macedonians to be between 5,000 and 10,000 in the whole of Bulgaria. However, in 2017 there were 18,000 ethnic Macedonian nationals registered as residents only in the Blagoevgrad Municipality. Their number in the whole of the province is higher. They are citizens of the Republic of Macedonia, but have also Bulgarian citizenship, based on declared Bulgarian ethnic origin. The ethnic Bulgarian population in the province, has on the other hand, also a regional Macedonian identity. Indeed it is said there is no clear ethnic difference between both groups. According to the 2011 census only 561 persons (0.2%) declared themselves as ethnic Macedonians in Blagoevgrad Province.