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The Vardar (; , , ) or Axios (, ) is the longest river in North Macedonia and a major river in Greece, where it reaches the Aegean Sea at Thessaloniki. It is long, out of which are in Greece, and drains an area of around . The maximum depth of the river is .
The modern Vardar is thought to derive from an earlier * Vardários, which may ultimately derive from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) * (s)wordo-wori- "black water".Orel, Vladimir. A Handbook of Germanic Etymology. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2003: 392.Mallory, J. P. and D. Q. Adams. Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. London: Fitzroy and Dearborn, 1997: 147. The name Vardários (Βαρδάριος) was sometimes used by the Ancient Greeks in the 3rd century BC. The same name was widely used in the Byzantine era.
Vardar/Vardarios may be a translation of (or otherwise have a similar meaning as) Axios, which may be Thracian and may have meant "not-shining" from PIE * n.-sk(e)i (cf. Avestan axšaēna "dark-coloured").Mallory, J. P. and D. Q. Adams. Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. London: Fitzroy and Dearborn, 1997: 146. The oldest known name of the river, Axios, is mentioned by Homer (Il. 21.141, Il. 2.849) Axios, Georg Autenrieth, A Homeric Dictionary, at Perseus as the home of the Paeonians allies of Troy. Pjetër Bogdani would use the form Asi, an earlier Albanian-language name for the river.
This same hypothetical Thracian Axio- meaning "dark, not-shining" is theorized to be found in the name of a city at the mouth of the Danube, called Axiopolis in Greek and Axíopa (perhaps again meaning just "dark water") in Thracian, which may later have been translated into Slavic as Cernavodă, also meaning "black water".Katičic', Radoslav. Ancient Languages of the Balkans. Paris: Mouton, 1976: 149.
The Vardar basin comprises two-thirds of the territory of North Macedonia. The valley features fertile lands in the Polog region, around Gevgelija and in the Thessaloniki regional unit. The river is surrounded by mountains elsewhere. The superhighways Greek National Road 1 in Greece and M1 and E75 run within the valley along the river's entire length to near Skopje.
The river was very famous during the Ottoman Empire and remains so in modern-day Turkey as the inspiration for many folk songs, of which the most famous is Vardar Ovasi. It has also been depicted on the coat of arms of Skopje, which in turn is incorporated in the city's flag.Official portal of the city of Skopje: City symbols . – Retrieved on 13 May 2009.
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