Geographical distribution of Macedonian speakers

The actual number of Macedonian native and second language speakers in the region of Macedonia is difficult to establish due to political policies of Greece, Bulgaria and Albania.

A 1964 estimate of the emigrant population put the number of Macedonian speakers outside the Balkans at approximately 580,000 people.

[1] In North Macedonia, according to the 2002 census, among the country's total population of 2,022,547 people, 1,344,815 spoke Macedonian as a native tongue.

[4] In addition to the Macedonian population, ethnic Albanians, Serbians, Romani, Turkish and Aromanians speak the language to various degrees as secondary speakers.

[8] The areal span of Macedonian that was formed with the settlement of Slavic people to the Balkans covered the historico-geographical region of Macedonia until the beginning of the 20th century.

[23] Peter Trudgill also classifies certain peripheral dialects in the far east of Greek Macedonia as part of the Bulgarian language area.

[24] Victor Friedman considers those Macedonian dialects, spoken east from Kilkis, to be transitional to the Bulgarian language.

[25] Some Greek Macedonians after the civil war of 1946–1949 moved to countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

[16] In Bulgaria, speakers of Macedonian are located in the South-Western part of the country, predominantly in the region of Blagoevgrad.

[26][27][28] This led to its declaration as official in the region of Pirin Macedonia in 1947, which also included the publishing of newspapers and books in Macedonian and introducing the language as a subject in schools.

[32] There are two dialects in Bulgaria that are considered Macedonian (transitional to Bulgarian) by Friedman and other linguists in North Macedonia as Božidar Vidoeski and Blaže Koneski: the Maleševo-Pirin (widely spoken in most of Blagoevgrad Province in Bulgaria and Delčevo region in the North Macedonia) and the Ser-Drama-Lagadin-Nevrokop dialects.

[6][36][37] The Gorani people however do not have an ethnic and linguistic self-identity, and during the 2011 census in Kosovo, they either listed their language as Goranski (also known as Našinski), as well as Serbian and Bosnian.

[40] The Government of Kosovo began to teach Macedonian after it acquired Macedonian-language textbooks and grammar books for the Gorani population.

[41] According to this census, Macedonian populations constitute a significant majority in several villages of Vojvodina, Dužine, Plandiste and Jabuka.

[6][5] According to data by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of North Macedonia, in 2008, there were around 284.600 Macedonians in Western, South-Western and Northern Europe, including 75–85,000 in Germany, 63,000 in Switzerland, 50,000 in Italy and 12–15,000 in Sweden.

[48] In the US, the largest concentrations of Macedonian speakers is in the states of Michigan (mostly in Detroit), northern New Jersey and southern New York, and Ohio.

[58] According to data published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of North Macedonia, the number of speakers of Macedonian in Australia and New Zealand includes 215,000 people, 15,000 of which are situated in the latter country.

It is possible to choose Macedonian as a study option in the New South Wales Higher School Certificate[59] and the Victorian VCE.

Distribution of Macedonian speakers across the world:
official language , approximately 2 million speakers — North Macedonia ;
approximately 70,000 speakers — Australia ;
more than 50,000 speakers — Germany , Italy , Switzerland ;
more than 20,000 speakers Albania (contested), Greece (contested), United States ;
approximately 10,000 speakers — Austria , Belgium , Denmark , Canada , Netherlands , Serbia , France , Sweden ;
less than 10,000. speakers — other countries
Distribution of Macedonian in North Macedonia (2002 census)
Distribution of Macedonian according to the 1980 Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups
The yat (*ě) split in the Eastern South Slavic .
Distribution of speakers of Macedonian in the US (2000)
Distribution of Macedonian speakers in regions of Australia in 2011. It is the second country after North Macedonia with the largest number of native speakers.