North Macedonia Post is the state-owned company for the provision of postal traffic. It was founded in 1992 as PTT Macedonia. In 1993 it was admitted to the World Postal Union in 1997, PTT Macedonia was divided into Macedonian Telekom and Macedonian Post (later renamed North Macedonia Post).
As far as water transport is concerned, only lake traffic through Ohrid and Prespan Lake has been developed, mostly for tourist purposes.
There are 17 airports officially in North Macedonia, of which 11 are with solid substrates. Among them are two airports of international character, since they are listed on the airport’s IATA airport code International Airport Skopje and Ohrid St. Paul the Apostle Airport.
Flag of North Macedonia:
The flag of North Macedonia is the national flag of the Republic of North Macedonia and depicts a stylized yellow sun on a red field, with eight broadening rays extending from the center to the edge of the field.
It was created by Miroslav Grčev and was adopted on 5 October 1995. The first flag of the country, known as the Vergina Flag, featured the Vergina Sun, a symbol that had been discovered at Aigai, the first capital and burial ground of the ancient kings of Macedon. Greece considers the Vergina Sun to be a Greek symbol and imposed a year-long economic embargo in order to force the then Republic of Macedonia to remove it from its flag, resulting in the current design. The new eight-rayed sun represents the “new sun of Liberty” referred to in “Denes nad Makedonija”, the national anthem of North Macedonia.
Vergina Flag (1992–1995):
In 1991, Todor Petrov, president of the nationalist organization World Macedonian Congress, designated and proposed the Vergina Sun as the national symbol of the then Republic of Macedonia. On 11 August 1992, the newly independent Republic of Macedonia adopted the new flag to replace the old Communist “red star” insignia. The flag depicted the “Vergina Sun” symbol, a stylized yellow sun centered on a red field with eight main and eight secondary rays emanating from the sun, tapering to a point. This ancient symbol was named after the Greek town where it had been discovered in archaeological excavations of the ancient Macedonian city of Aigai.
The Vergina Sun was regarded by Greece as a symbol of continuity between ancient Macedonia and modern Greek culture, and in particular as a symbol of the Argead dynasty of Philip II of Macedon and his son Alexander the Great. From the late 1970s it had also been adopted by many both in Greece and the then Socialist Republic of Macedonia to symbolize historical connections with ancient Macedonia and had been paraded in demonstrations by Greeks and ethnic Macedonians at home and abroad.
The flag, the new state’s constitution and its name all became the focus of a dispute between the two countries, during which Greece imposed an economic blockade on the Republic from February 1994. In July 1995, Greece lodged a request with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) for exclusive trademark protection to the Vergina Sun.