A city in Macedonia

Negotino · Неготино

View of Negotino

Negotino lies at the eastern edge of the Tikves basin beside North Macedonia's main Vardar road and rail corridor. Dry hills, warm summers and the river valley create one of the country's defining wine landscapes.

Archaeological sites record long settlement along the routes between the Vardar and the interior. Claims that individual ruins are ancient Antigoneia remain debated, so the safer public story emphasizes the well-documented continuity of farming, travel and exchange.

The Ottoman-period settlement developed as a market and service town for an agricultural hinterland. In the twentieth century, organized viticulture, wineries and modern transport established Negotino as one of the working centres of the Tikves wine district.

The city museum, Saint George monastery and Saint Tryphon vine-growing customs connect material heritage with the agricultural calendar. The municipality includes 18 villages, ranging from Vardar-side settlements to dry uplands and vineyard country.

The 2021 census counted 12,488 residents in Negotino itself and 18,194 across the wider municipality; 5,706 people lived outside the city settlement. That distinction between the urban centre and its surrounding communities is important in Macedonian demographic reporting and in understanding everyday local life.

At a glance

Municipality
Negotino Municipality
City population
12,488
Municipality population
18,194
Population year
2021
Municipal area
426.46 km²
Elevation
150 m
Approx. road distance from Skopje
98 km
Postal code
1440
Climate
Modified Mediterranean-continental climate with hot, dry summers, relatively mild winters and strong suitability for vines.
Sports teams
FK Vardar Negotino
Culture
Saint Tryphon celebrations publicly mark the pruning season and the town's wine identity. · Negotino City Museum preserves archaeological, ethnological and modern historical collections. · The town belongs to the wider Tikves wine region shared with Kavadarci and neighbouring municipalities.
Statistical region
Vardar
Settlements
19
Villages
18
Area note
The municipality's newer 2027 energy plan gives 426.46 km2; an older general-information page gives 414 km2. The newer official figure is used here.
Population snapshot
12,488 city residents and 18,194 municipality residents in the 2021 census; 5,706 lived outside the city settlement.

Geography

Negotino sits near the eastern edge of the Tikves basin, where the low hills open toward the Vardar River corridor. This is a dry, sunlit part of central-southern North Macedonia: continental air reaches the basin from the north, while warmer influences travel up the Vardar from the Aegean. The town's position beside the country's principal north-south route has long made it a practical stopping point between Skopje and Gevgelija.

Vines define the surrounding landscape. Stony, well-drained slopes and hot summers favour wine grapes, while fields closer to the river support cereals, vegetables and orchard crops. The wider municipality also reaches into rugged country cut by seasonal streams, so the compact town quickly gives way to vineyards, scrub and pale hills. Negotino and neighbouring Kavadarci form the working heart of the Tikves wine district rather than two isolated wine towns.

History

People have occupied the lower Tikves landscape since prehistory, and archaeological sites around Negotino record ancient settlement along routes that linked the Vardar valley with the interior. The ruins near the modern town are often discussed in connection with ancient Antigoneia, although the precise identification of individual sites should be treated cautiously. What is certain is that farming, movement along the river corridor and the exchange of local goods shaped the area well before the present town took form.

During the Ottoman centuries, Negotino developed as a road settlement and market for a productive agricultural hinterland. Its urban character became clearer in the nineteenth century, when craft, trade and wine growing expanded. The end of Ottoman rule and the Balkan wars brought upheaval, after which the town became part of successive Yugoslav states.

In the twentieth century, organized viticulture, wineries and transport links turned an old agricultural centre into one of the country's best-known wine towns. The City Museum, founded in 1978, now preserves archaeological, ethnological and historical material from the municipality. The annual observance of Saint Tryphon, patron of vine growers, gives public expression to a much older local rhythm: pruning in winter, tending through the dry summer and harvest at the edge of autumn.

The complete historical narrative

This town in the Vardar valley has a rich and eventful past. A settlement existed here in antiquity and is traditionally identified with Antigonia, or Antigoneia, said to have been founded in the third century BC by the Macedonian king Antigonus Gonatas, who ruled from 278 to 239 BC. After extending his authority over Paeonia and the settlements along the middle Vardar, the new foundation is said to have received his name. The precise identification of the archaeological site, however, remains debated.

Material finds and local tradition place Antigonia, regarded in the legacy account as Negotino's predecessor, twelve Roman miles south of ancient Stobi on the road to Thessaloniki, at Gradište near today's Negotino railway station. Coins bearing portraits of Roman emperors, valuable jewellery and other remains from the Roman and Byzantine periods have been found there. The account holds that the ancient town survived until the sixth century, when a disastrous earthquake struck much of Macedonia and damaged or destroyed cities including Scupi, Stobi, Heraclea, Astibo and Idomenae; the scale and exact effects of that event should be treated cautiously.

In the tenth and eleventh centuries, the Negotino area formed part of the state ruled by Tsar Samuel and his successors.

The Vardar valley and the Negotino district came under Ottoman authority in 1385 during the campaign of Timurtaş Pasha. During the Ottoman period, Ali Pasha of Ioannina is said to have reactivated a nearby fortress because the Skopje–Thessaloniki road passed close by on the right bank of the Vardar. His soldiers collected tolls from merchants at the canyon passage.

In the first years of the nineteenth century, Negotino was a bey's estate of about thirty houses. Kazim Bey and Kantur Bey held estates on the site of the present town, worked by the local Macedonian population.

In 1821, the wealthy Hadži Tair built a clock tower, a mosque and a covered market with about fifteen shops. The settlement then began to grow as merchants and craftspeople arrived from nearby places. Negotino was first described as a town in 1837, when a church and school were built. Goods were carried toward Thessaloniki on rafts along the Vardar, which the account describes as navigable from Veles to the Aegean Sea.

The years of the Balkan Wars and the First World War, from 1913 to 1918, were especially dark for Negotino. The town was burned on several occasions, its population was scattered, and many people died defending their homes. Competing armies and state interests divided families; in some cases brothers fought on opposing sides. Residents were pressured to alter the endings of their surnames, while men returning from one war were sent into another before they had even seen their closest relatives.

Negotino's history is therefore marked by events that repeatedly changed the town's course, each leaving another layer in its collective memory.

Known for

Interesting facts

Celebrities

Villages

Monasteries nearby

This collection preserves 15 old photographs and 30 city photographs.

Old Photos

Preserved historical photograph of Negotino from the Macedonian Cities archive, 1 of 15
Negotino · Old Photo 1 of 15 · Source
Preserved historical photograph of Negotino from the Macedonian Cities archive, 2 of 15
Negotino · Old Photo 2 of 15 · Source
Preserved historical photograph of Negotino from the Macedonian Cities archive, 3 of 15
Negotino · Old Photo 3 of 15 · Source
Preserved historical photograph of Negotino from the Macedonian Cities archive, 4 of 15
Negotino · Old Photo 4 of 15 · Source
Preserved historical photograph of Negotino from the Macedonian Cities archive, 5 of 15
Negotino · Old Photo 5 of 15 · Source
Preserved historical photograph of Negotino from the Macedonian Cities archive, 6 of 15
Negotino · Old Photo 6 of 15 · Source
Preserved historical photograph of Negotino from the Macedonian Cities archive, 7 of 15
Negotino · Old Photo 7 of 15 · Source
Preserved historical photograph of Negotino from the Macedonian Cities archive, 8 of 15
Negotino · Old Photo 8 of 15 · Source
Preserved historical photograph of Negotino from the Macedonian Cities archive, 9 of 15
Negotino · Old Photo 9 of 15 · Source
Preserved historical photograph of Negotino from the Macedonian Cities archive, 10 of 15
Negotino · Old Photo 10 of 15 · Source
Preserved historical photograph of Negotino from the Macedonian Cities archive, 11 of 15
Negotino · Old Photo 11 of 15 · Source
Preserved historical photograph of Negotino from the Macedonian Cities archive, 12 of 15
Negotino · Old Photo 12 of 15 · Source
Preserved historical photograph of Negotino from the Macedonian Cities archive, 13 of 15
Negotino · Old Photo 13 of 15 · Source
Preserved historical photograph of Negotino from the Macedonian Cities archive, 14 of 15
Negotino · Old Photo 14 of 15 · Source
Preserved historical photograph of Negotino from the Macedonian Cities archive, 15 of 15
Negotino · Old Photo 15 of 15 · Source

Photo Gallery

City photograph of Negotino, 1 of 30
Negotino · Photograph 1 of 30 · Source
City photograph of Negotino, 2 of 30
Negotino · Photograph 2 of 30 · Source
City photograph of Negotino, 3 of 30
Negotino · Photograph 3 of 30 · Source
City photograph of Negotino, 4 of 30
Negotino · Photograph 4 of 30 · Source
City photograph of Negotino, 5 of 30
Negotino · Photograph 5 of 30 · Source
City photograph of Negotino, 6 of 30
Negotino · Photograph 6 of 30 · Source
City photograph of Negotino, 7 of 30
Negotino · Photograph 7 of 30 · Source
City photograph of Negotino, 8 of 30
Negotino · Photograph 8 of 30 · Source
City photograph of Negotino, 9 of 30
Negotino · Photograph 9 of 30 · Source
City photograph of Negotino, 10 of 30
Negotino · Photograph 10 of 30 · Source
City photograph of Negotino, 11 of 30
Negotino · Photograph 11 of 30 · Source
City photograph of Negotino, 12 of 30
Negotino · Photograph 12 of 30 · Source
City photograph of Negotino, 13 of 30
Negotino · Photograph 13 of 30 · Source
City photograph of Negotino, 14 of 30
Negotino · Photograph 14 of 30 · Source
City photograph of Negotino, 15 of 30
Negotino · Photograph 15 of 30 · Source
City photograph of Negotino, 16 of 30
Negotino · Photograph 16 of 30 · Source
City photograph of Negotino, 17 of 30
Negotino · Photograph 17 of 30 · Source
City photograph of Negotino, 18 of 30
Negotino · Photograph 18 of 30 · Source
City photograph of Negotino, 19 of 30
Negotino · Photograph 19 of 30 · Source
City photograph of Negotino, 20 of 30
Negotino · Photograph 20 of 30 · Source
City photograph of Negotino, 21 of 30
Negotino · Photograph 21 of 30 · Source
City photograph of Negotino, 22 of 30
Negotino · Photograph 22 of 30 · Source
City photograph of Negotino, 23 of 30
Negotino · Photograph 23 of 30 · Source
City photograph of Negotino, 24 of 30
Negotino · Photograph 24 of 30 · Source
City photograph of Negotino, 25 of 30
Negotino · Photograph 25 of 30 · Source
City photograph of Negotino, 26 of 30
Negotino · Photograph 26 of 30 · Source
City photograph of Negotino, 27 of 30
Negotino · Photograph 27 of 30 · Source
City photograph of Negotino, 28 of 30
Negotino · Photograph 28 of 30 · Source
City photograph of Negotino, 29 of 30
Negotino · Photograph 29 of 30 · Source
City photograph of Negotino, 30 of 30
Negotino · Photograph 30 of 30 · Source

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