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Muslims in the Republic of Macedonia represent one-third of the nation's total population, making Islam the second most widely professed religion in the country. Muslims in the Republic of Macedonia follow Sunni Islam of the Hanafi madhhab. Some northwestern and western regions of the country have Muslim majorities. A large majority of all the Muslims in the country are ethnic Albanians, with the rest being primarily Turks, Romani, Bosniaks or Torbeš.
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Ethnicity
Albanian Muslims, forming roughly 25% of the nation's total population and most of the Muslim population, live mostly in the Polog and western regions of the country. The Turks, who make up about 4% of the country's total population, are scattered throughout the country, but mostly in major cities, as are Roma Muslims. Bosniaks are mostly concentrated within Skopje. Muslims of Macedonian ethnicity number roughly 40,000 to 100,000 and can be found in western Macedonia in the Centar Župa, Debar, Struga and Plasnica areas.
Historical population
The following table shows the Muslim population and percentage for each given year. The Muslim percentage in Macedonia generally decreased from 1904 to 1961 but began to rise again due to high fertility rate among Muslim families, reaching 33.33% in 2002. According to the 2002 Census, 46.5% of the children aged 0–4 were Muslim. In 2010, 39.3% of the population were Muslim. However, Islam is predicted to be become the largest religion in the country by 2050, with almost half of the country adhering to the faith.