Özet:

In the center of the Balkans, where Macedonia, Serbs, Bosnians, Albanians, Turks, Ulahs and Muslims live together, North Macedonia has a strategic importance in political, religious and economic terms. The demographic structure of North Macedonia, which the Ottoman Empire has held under more than five centuries of rule, has changed after the Balkan Wars. As a result of this war, a large number of Muslim Turks have migrated to Turkey as a result of World War II. The oppressive and misbehavior of the Muslim Turks in Macedonia under the communist rule of the Yugoslav Socialist Federal Republic has accelerated the migration of the Turkish minority to Turkey. In the cities in Eastern Macedonia where the Turks live intensely, the Turkish population has decreased and with time the Turkish population has declined in the status of minority in the cities in Macedonia. In the 14th century, the percentage of Muslim population in the region has dropped to 34% in the final population count, after 600 years of Islamic religion being the dominant religion in the region. This study focuses on the geographical distribution of the Turkish minority in North Macedonia and the demographic perspective. In this context, it has been taken advantage of corporate reports and field research on the subject. In the research, the basic research methods of the geography were monitored, the data base was created by providing relevant sources and publications. At the stage of the application of the travel-observation method, which is an important part of geographical thinking, observations were made in the cities of Northern Macedonia in Scope, Valandovo, Ohri, Tetevo, and the research field photographs were used to strengthen the expressions. The result of this study is that the Northern Macedonia Turks retain their tolerance-based characteristics, but in the years the Turkish population in the Macedonian cities has increasingly decreased.

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