The Vardar Banovina, or Vardar Banate (Macedonian and ; ), was a province (banate) of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia between 1929 and 1941.
History
It was located in the southernmost part of the country, encompassing the whole of today's
North Macedonia, southern parts of Southern and Eastern Serbia and southeastern parts of
Kosovo and
Serbia. It was named after the
Vardar River and its administrative capital was the city of
Skopje. According to the 1930 statistics of the Central Press Bureau of the Ministerial Council
[Published in the: Central Press Bureau of the Ministerial Council, Belgrade 1930] out of the 9 Yugoslav banovinas, the "Vardarska" banovina was the largest at ; while its population, was the fourth at 1,386,370 inhabitants. Following the First World War, in
Vardar Macedonia and in the so-called
Western Outlands, the local Bulgarian (Macedonian Bulgarian) population was not recognized and a state-policy of
Serbianisation occurred.
[Poulton, Hugh (2003). "Macedonians and Albanians as Yugoslavs". In Djokić, Dejan (ed.). Yugoslavism: Histories of a Failed Idea, 1918–1992. C. Hurst & Co. Publishers. p. 123. .][Papavizas, George C. (2015). Claiming Macedonia: The Struggle for the Heritage, Territory and Name of the Historic Hellenic Land, 1862-2004. McFarland. pp. 92-93, .] It also suffered the worst health problems, especially
typhus and
smallpox, and required one Institute of Hygiene, 3 health stations and 6 dispensaries and convalescent homes. On the other hand, unlike the banovinas that until the creation of
Yugoslavia had belonged to the Austro-Hungarian empire and the lands of
Montenegro, it had inherited no debts. According to the 1931
Constitution of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the Vardar Banovina was bounded on the north by the boundaries of the
Zeta Banovina and
, and on the east, south and west by the State frontiers with Bulgaria,
Greece, and
Albania. In 1941, the World War II
Axis Powers occupied the Vardar Banovina and divided it between Bulgaria,
Nazi Germany-occupied Serbia, and Albania under Italy. Following World War II, the southern portion of the region became Socialist Republic of Macedonia while the northern portions were made a part of the Socialist Republic of Serbia, both within the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
Bans of Vardar Banovina
-
Živojin Lazić (1929–1932)
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Dobrica Matković (1932–1933)
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Dragoslav Đorđević (1933–1935)
-
Ranko Trifunović (1935–1936)
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Dušan Filipović (1936)
-
Dragan Paunović (1936–1937)
-
Marko Novaković (1937–1939)
-
Vladimir Hajduk-Veljković (1939)
-
Aleksandar Cvetković (1939)
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Aleksandar Andrejević (1939–1940)
-
Žika Rafajlović (1940–1941)
Cities and towns
