page_title: Aromanians
section_title: In North Macedonia
hierarchical_section_title: Aromanians / Aromanians today / In North Macedonia
caption_attribution_description: Български: Снимка на Георки Касапчето. English: Georgi Kasapcheto
context_page_description: The Aromanians or Macedo-Romanians are a Romance ethnic group native to the Balkans, traditionally living in northern and central Greece, Romania, central and southern Albania, North Macedonia, south-western Bulgaria, Montenegro, Croatia with the Dalmatic Mountains, Slovenia with the Istrian Peninsula, and all Serbia. The term Vlachs is used in Greece to refer to Aromanians, but this term is internationally used to encompass all Romance-speaking peoples of the Balkans and Tatra Mountains regions.
  Aromanians speak the Aromanian language, a Latin-derived vernacular very similar to Romanian, which has many slightly varying dialects of its own. It descends from the Vulgar Latin spoken by the Paleo-Balkan peoples subsequent to their Romanization. Aromanian is a mix of Latin and post-Big Migrations domestic language with additional influences from other surrounding languages of the Balkans, mainly Greek, Albanian, Macedonian, and Bulgarian.
context_section_description: According to official government figures (census 2002), there are 9,695 Aromanians or Vlachs, as they are officially called in North Macedonia. According to the census of 1953 there were 8,669 Vlachs, 6,392 in 1981 and 8,467 in 1994. Aromanians are recognized as an ethnic minority, and are hence represented in Parliament and enjoy ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious rights and the right to education in their language.
  They have also received financial support from the Romanian government, which made recognition of North Macedonia's independence conditional on the extension of minority rights to the Aromanians. There are Aromanian cultural societies and associations such as the Union for Aromanian Culture from North Macedonia, The Aromanian League of North Macedonia, The International League of Aromanians, Comuna Armãneascã "Frats Manachi", (The Aromanian Community Manaki Brothers) in Bitola (Aromanian Bituli or Bitule), Partia a'Armãnjlor di tu Machedonia (The Party of the Aromanians from Macedonia) and Unia Democraticã'a Armãnjlor di tu Machedonia (The Democratic Union of the Aromanians from Macedonia).
  Many forms of Aromanian-language media have been established since the 1990s. North Macedonia's Government provides financial assistance to Aromanian-language newspapers and radio stations. Aromanian-language newspapers such as Phoenix (Aromanian Fenix) service the Aromanian community. The Aromanian television program Spark (Aromanian Scanteao, Macedonian Искра (Iskra)) broadcasts on the second channel of the Macedonian Radio-Television.
  There are Aromanian classes provided in primary schools and the state funds some Aromanian published works (magazines and books) as well as works that cover Aromanian culture, language and history. The latter is mostly done by the first Aromanian Scientific Society, "Constantin Belemace" in Skopje (Aromanian Scopia), which has organized symposiums on Aromanian history and has published papers from them. According to the last census, there were 9,596 Aromanians (0.48% of the total population). There are concentrations in Kruševo (Aromanian Crushuva) 1,020 (20%), Štip (Aromanian Shtip) 2,074 (4.3%), Bitola 1,270 (1.3%), Struga 656 (1%), Sveti Nikole (Aromanian San Nicole) 238 (1.4%), Kisela Voda 647 (1.1%) and Skopje 2,557 (0.5%).
caption: Gheorghe (Ioryi) Mucitani, leader of the first Aromanian band in the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization
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