Lower Macedonia

Lower Macedonia, (Ancient Greek: Κάτω Μακεδονία, Kato Makedonia) Lower Macedon, Macedonia proper or Emathia were used in Greek antiquity as geographical terms referring to the coastal plain stretching along the coast of the Thermaic Gulf and watered by Haliacmon, Axius and Loudias rivers. Lower Macedonia was the core and defined the center of the kingdom of Macedon.

Its districts were: Emathia, Pieria, Bottiaea, Almopia, Amphaxitis. Aigai, the original capital of Argead Macedon, near modern Vergina, and Pella, the birthplace of Philip II and Alexander the Great and the new capital of the kingdom since the 4th century BC, were in Lower Macedonia, in modern Central Macedonia, in Greece.