The Republic of North Macedonia is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe. It is bordered by Albania to the west, Greece to the south, Bulgaria to the east, and Kosovo and Serbia to the north. Its capital, Skopje, is the largest city and the home to a quarter of the country’s population. The Republic of North Macedonia was part of Yugoslavia. It gained independence after Yugoslavia broke up in 1991 as a result of the Yugoslav wars.
The country uses the Macedonian denar as its currency. One denar is equivalent to 100 deni. Petar Illevski proposed the name denar, which comes from the denarius, an ancient Roman monetary unit. On April 1992, the Republic of Macedonia seceded from the Yugoslav dinar monetary zone. The National Bank of the Republic of Macedonia (NBRM) assumed issuing authority and central bank responsibilities. The first series of banknotes issued did not have the bank’s name because the notes were produced before the passage of the Law on the National Bank of the Republic of Macedonia. In 1993, the denar was revalued at a rate of one new denar to 100 old denars to address inflation. These new denar banknotes were based on Biljana Unkovska’s designs, printed on higher quality paper, and had better security features including multi-tonal watermarks and solid security threads. Each note featured a significant Macedonian town or city by highlighting two landmarks: one on the obverse side and another on the reverse side. In 1996, new designs were released. These new banknotes highlight cultural, artistic, and architectural artefacts, are more colorful, and have stronger security features. In 2000, a commemorative 100 denar banknote was issued to celebrate the new millennium. In 2016, the 200 and 2,000 denar banknotes were introduced and the 5,000 denar banknotes were withdrawn to balance the structure of banknotes in circulation. In 2018, 10 and 50 denar polymer banknotes were introduced.
