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With an area of 9,955 square miles (25,784 sq. km), Highland is the largest of Scotlands local government areas and cover one third of Scotlands total area. It has a very sparse population of around 210,000, the lowest average population density in Europe. It shares a border with Perth and Kinross, Moray and Argyll and Bute. These councils, and Angus and Stirling, also have areas of the Scottish Highlands within their administrative boundaries. It covers the mainland and inner-Hebridean parts of the traditional counties of Inverness-shire, Ross-shire, and Cromartyshire as well as all of Sutherland, Nairnshire and Caithness as well as the far northwest of Argyllshire.

In Highlands there are the popular towns of Portree, Glencoe, Wick, Fortrose, Fort William, Inverness and Wick

Geography

The Highlands consist of an old dissected plateau, or block, of ancient crystalline rocks with incised valleys and lochs carved by the action of mountain streams and by ice, the resulting topography being a wide area of irregularly distributed mountains whose summits have nearly the same height above sea-level, but whose bases depend upon the amount of denudation to which the plateau has been subjected in various places. In the northeast (Caithness), old red sandstone rocks give a softer, lower topography; Ben Nevis (4,406 ft), Cairngorm Mountains; Loch Ness; Cuillin Hills, Skye. The region stretches from Appin on Loch Linnhe in the south to the northern tip of Caithness and from the island of Skye in the west to Strathspey in the east. It encompasses the North West Highlands of Scotland, some of the islands of the Inner Hebrides and a deeply indented fjord-like coastline. It is bisected by the Great Glen Fault, within which lies the Caledonian Canal and Loch Ness.

Industry

Winter sports, timber, aluminium smelting, pulp and paper production, whisky distilling, cottage and croft industries, salmon fishing, sheep farming, grouse and deer hunting.

History

This area differed from the Lowlands by language and tradition, better preserving the Gaelic speech. Even in a historical sense the Highlanders were a separate people from the Lowlanders, with whom, during many centuries, they shared nothing in common. The area is the location of many key historical moments in Scottish history, including the massacre of Glencoe in 1692 and the Battle of Culloden in 1745&'45;6. The Highland Clearances consisted of the replacement of an ancient system of land tenure with the rearing of sheep. As a result, many families living on a subsistence level were displaced. The Clearances had their roots in the failure of the Jacobite rebellion after the Battle of Culloden in the 18th century. Legislation was introduced to destroy the way of life of the Highlanders.