Montenegro's Topography, Nature & Climate

Macedonia - that's mountains, mountains and mountains. Sometimes also mountains. The country is landlocked, and a large part of it occupies a plateau with an altitude of 600 to 900 metres. Right through the middle of the small country, the Вардар (Vardar) river flows southwards before it flows into the Aegean Sea near Thessaloniki in Greece

	Titov Vrv (probably) as seen from Skopje

There are two large and interesting lakes in the south-west corner of the country - one is the ез. Преспа (Lake Prespa), the other one ез. Охрид (Lake Ohrid). The latter is more famous, with it's maximum depth of 294 metres it's the deepest lake on the whole Balkan peninsula. The highest mountains can be found in the north-west around the city of Tetovo. There, the Шар Планина (Shar Planina, Shar Mountains stretch from the north to the south. The highest peak of the country, 2,763 m high Голем Кораб (Golem Korab) near the border Albania, lies there. Close to it is the second-highest, only 15 m smaller Титов врв (Titov Vrv, vrv=mount). The mountain range between the two lakes is very impressive, too. It's one of Macedonia's three national parks. The mountains west of Тетово (Tetovo) even offer winter sports facilities such as ski lifts etc.

Since the Mediterranean Sea is not far, the climate is rather moderate. The Macedonian summer is hot and dry, the winter is not too cold. Of course, the climate in the mountains is different - it's almost certain that there's a lot of snow. Thanks to the climate and fertile soils, almost everything can be grown in Macedonia: cereals, tobacco, rice, cotton, cucumber, tomato etc. Agriculture is an important business in the country; many products are exported to the EU and other countries. Natural resources are not limited to agriculture. Chrome, manganese, lead, zinc, tungsten and other ores are exploited. Unfortunately, the underground has something else up in its sleeves: destructive earthquakes. In the year 1963, the capital →Skopje was virtually levelled by a tremendous quake.