Macedonia, officially the Republic of Macedonia, has a population of only about 2 million people. Macedonia's capital and largest city, Skopje, is home to half a million people. Macedonia's second largest city, Bitola, has a population of 74,500. Macedonia has an area of ​​9,928 square miles. The lowest place in Macedonia is in the Vardar River, while remaining above sea level, 50 meters above sea level. This place differs greatly from the highest place, Mount Korab, at 2,764 meters. This mountain is not only the highest peak in Macedonia, but also the highest peak in Albania. The main physical features include Lake Ohrid and Lake Prespa. Other significant land features include the Dinaric Alps, Šar Mountains, Osogovske Mountains, Nidže Mountains and Maleševeske Mountains. This affects the country because it results in part of the soil not being irrigated, which causes difficulties for agriculture. Macedonia has a birth rate of 11.72/1000 inhabitants. Its mortality rate is barely lower, at 9.00/1000 inhabitants. Macedonia's annual growth rate is 0.22%. Macedonians have a long life expectancy of seventy-five years. Almost all of these people can read, with a literacy rate of 96.1 percent. This makes the Macedonian population appear to balance on a population pyramid, predicting a reduced population by 2053. In Macedonia, the main ethnic group, Macedonians, make up 68.5% of the Macedonian population. The other two ethnic groups that represent more than 5% of the population are Albanians (17.1%) and Turks (7.3%). Although 50% of the Macedonian population contains other or unspecified religions, Orthodox is the most dominant religion. ..... middle of paper ......that this could lead to potential conflict between ethnic groups among schoolchildren. A major environmental problem has been the opening of warming stations due to the extremely cold weather. The warming stations were opened on January 6, 2014 due to a temperature of 2°F with high winds which had a temperature value dropping to -40°F with winds gusting 20 to 25 mph. Works cited by The Economist. Journal The Economist, nd Web. January 8, 2014. Hart, Diane. Living geography! Regions and people. Palo Alto, CA: Teachers' Curriculum Institute, 2006. Print. “Macedonia – Population – Historical data graphs by year. » Macedonia - Unemployment. Np, and Web. January 7, 2014. “Macedonia” Macedonia Facts: Find out the facts about Macedonia. Np, and Web. January 7, 2014. Sager, Robert J. and David M. Helgren. Holt World Geography Today. Austin: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 2003. Print.