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I am planning a trip to Greece and more precisely to Macedonia. I would like to ask one or another question regarding this trip. However, before doing so, I would like to settle an important tag issue.

There is a tag on the site. Unfortunately, this tag is misleading. From the tag's info page I learn that

Macedonia is a country in Southeast Europe.

Form this information I deduce that the tag refers to (Former Yugoslav) Republic of Macedonia rather than Macedonia per se. Hence I think it makes sense to clarify the things. The actual tag could be transformed into a , , , or tag. Or possibly into the three of them, via the tag synonym system.

Alternatively, one could create a or a tag for question about Macedonia (outside the republic of Macedonia).

What do you think?

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In a travel context (as opposed to a historical context), anywhere but in Greece, “Macedonia” with no other qualification refers to the country, just like “Luxembourg” with no other qualification refers to the country (or to the city) and not to the Belgian province.

All questions in the are about the country, and the tag wiki describes the tag as being about the country. There is nothing misleading here.

There is currently no question about Macedonia, the Greek region. When a question on this topic appears, feels like a reasonable tag name.

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    Thanks for sharing your opinion. This looks sensible to me. However, in the case of Georgia it has been handled the other way round. Hence my question ...
    – user3470
    Commented Jan 22, 2013 at 17:40
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The official name of the country is:

Republika Severna Makedonija (Republic of North Macedonia)

As of February 12th 2019, the amendments to the country's Constitution enter into force:

Announcement of the Government of the Republic of North Macedonia for entry into force of the Final Agreement, Constitutional Amendments and Constitutional Law for Implementation of Amendments

Hence, there is no country named "just Macedonia", and the existing tag left misleading. I guess, we should rename it. I suggest the most obvious variant, (and accompany it with a foreword within the tag excerpt).

This would also satisfy our fellow Greek users.

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Since it is stated within the Travel Meta discussion about Kiev/Kyiv that we use Wikipedia as our source of spelling. Wikipedia calls the Republic of North Macedonia, North Macedonia. If, in fact, we are using Wikipedia as our source of information about spelling, then this tag should be North Macedonia.

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I think and . They have precedence. Though would also make sense.

There's probably no need for as not many people will go to both countries and focus only on this region. And for those that do they can simply use both tags.

I just found out from Wikipedia that there's more than one "place" with Macedonia in its name in Greece:

  • Administration of Macedonia and Thrace
  • East Macedonia and Thrace Region
  • Central Macedonia Region
  • Administration of Epirus and Western Macedonia
  • West Macedonia Region

Two are municipalities and three are regions. I have no idea whether people use these levels in day-to-day discussions like we do for USA, Canada, Australia for instance.

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    The phrase fyrom only exists because of political pressure from Greece against Macedonia. We shouldn't be supporting that. Macedonia is a country, just like Luxemburg, Georgia, Mongolia, and other places sharing names with foreign provinces.
    – gerrit
    Commented Jan 22, 2013 at 13:51
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    @YannisRizos That's because Greece otherwise blocks Macedonian UN membership. Macedonia itself does not call itself FYROM.
    – gerrit
    Commented Jan 22, 2013 at 21:28
  • If you ask the macedonians, they would say the whole balkan is macedonian
    – Dirty-flow
    Commented Jan 22, 2013 at 23:35
  • @Dirty-flow: Which Macedonians? 100% of them? Even the Greek ones?
    – hippietrail
    Commented Jan 23, 2013 at 8:24
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    Well we're not the UN, the UN has made pragmatic compromises from the point of view of a world-wide diplomatic organization. I have nothing against us also making pragmatic compromises, as long as we do it from the point of view of a travel-related website.
    – hippietrail
    Commented Jan 23, 2013 at 8:26
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    @YannisRizos: As somebody with a Greek name toeing the official Greek line, I don't think you are in a position to accuse gerrit of bringing politics into the discussion. As a traveller who had great times with great people in Greece, Macedonia, Turkey, and Albania, I like the majority of travellers call each country the name its people call it in English. I do the same for Palestine, Taiwan, Tibet, etc. I care that the UN gets on with diplomacy. I don't care to follow their country naming compromises, and I bet they don't expect travellers to do so.
    – hippietrail
    Commented Jan 23, 2013 at 8:31
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    @gerrit: Pragmatically, people do refer to the country as FYROM, or more often "Macedonia (FYROM)" or "Macedonia, the country". This is a good example of why I prefer disambiguated placename tags to all have hyphens rather than taking a position and favouring one over another. I'm still against the "america" tag being a synonym of USA and for "georgia-country" and "georgia-usa" both keeping their hyphenated disambiguators.
    – hippietrail
    Commented Jan 23, 2013 at 8:35
  • @YannisRizos: Ah yes that's right. Well like I say, everybody, including organizations and countries needs to make the compromises that make sense for them. That's why not every compromise is the same. And that's why our compromise needn't match any of the ones already out there.
    – hippietrail
    Commented Jan 23, 2013 at 9:04

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