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Aberdeenshire is the sixth largest Scottish county in area, occupying 5,107 km² and has a population of around 227,000. The population has a higher proportion of younger age groups than the rest of Scotland, reflecting employment-driven migration in recent decades. Its administrative centre is Aberdeen City.

In Aberdeenshire there are the popular towns of Dunecht, St Fergus, Blackburn, Stonehaven, Maud, Ballater, Cornhill, Fraserburgh, Peterhead, St Cyrus, Turriff, Newburgh and Blackburn.

Geography

Aberdeen is bordered in the north and east by the North Sea, in the south by Kincardine, Forfar, and Perth, and in the west by Inverness and Banff. It has a coastline of 65 miles (105 km. The county is generally hilly, and from the southwest, near the centre of Scotland, the Grampians send out various branches, mostly to the northeast. There are five geographical areas: Mar, mostly between the Dee and Don, which nearly covers the southern half of the county and contains the city of Aberdeen. It is mountainous, especially Braemar, which contains the greatest mass of elevated land in the British Isles. The Dee valley has sandy soil, the Don valley loamy. Formartine, between the lower Don and Ythan, has a sandy coast, which is succeeded inland by a clayey, fertile, tilled tract, and then by low hills, moors, mosses and tilled land.

Industry

Crude oil and Natural gas production has brought great prosperity to the refiona dn forms an important component of the economy. Agriculture is important in the fertile valleys.

History

The county once served as home to the northern Picts. Roman camps have also been discovered on the upper Ythan and Deveron although there is little eveidence of any more permanent occupation. Weems or earth-houses occur in the west. Relics of crannogs or lake dwellings exist at Loch Ceander, or Kinnord,, at Loch Goul and elsewhere. Duns or forts occur on hills at Dunecht, Bnrra near Old Meldrum, Tap o Noth, Dunnideer near Insch and other places. Monoliths, standing stones and "druidical" circles of the pagan period abound. Efforts to convert the Picts started in the 5th century, and continued with Columba (who founded a monastery at Old Deer). The Vikings raided from the coast, but after Macbeth ascended the throne of Scotland in 1040, the Northmen, refrained from further trouble in the north-east. The Norman conquest of England forced numerous Anglo-Saxon noble families into exiles and many of these families settled in this area.