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Covers an area of 1,827 square miles (4,733 sq km) and has a population of around 107,000. It borders onto Dumfries and Galloway in the west, South Lanarkshire in the north west, East Lothian, Midlothian to the north, and the county of Northumberland in England to the south. The administrative centre of the region is Newtown St. Boswells. It covers all of the traditional counties of Berwickshire, Peeblesshire, Roxburghshire and Selkirkshire as well as part of Midlothian.

In Scottish Borders there are the popular towns of Coldingham, Kelso and Jedburgh.

Geography

The region is hilly in the south, west and north, with the River Tweed flowing west to east through the region. The east of the region is primarily flat sometimes with isolated small groups of hills. The Tweed and its tributaries, including the river Teviot, drain the entire region with the river flowing into the North Sea at Berwick-upon-Tweed, and forming the border with England for the last twenty miles or so of its length. Much of the west part of the area is upland (Lammermuir, Moorfoot and Pentland Hills) and Broad Law (2,756 feet), near Tweedsmuir, is the highest point. The largest loch is St Mary's, and the only substantial area of low-lying agricultural land is the Merse in the southeast, near the English border. The coast is generally precipitous.

Industry

Electronics, timber, knitwear, tweed, sheep and cattle; cereals and root crops; fishing.

History

The region was created in 1975 as a two-tier region with the districts of Berwickshire, Ettrick and Lauderdale, Roxburgh, and Tweeddale under it. On April 1, 1996 the region became a unitary council region. It was originally known as Borders, and changed its name on April 25, 1996. The administrative region was formed from four traditional counties Peeblesshire, Roxburghshire, Selkirkshire and Berwickshire but historically, the term Borders has a wider meaning, referring to all of the counties adjoining the English border, also including Dumfriesshire and Kirkcudbrightshire as well as Northumberland, Cumberland and Westmoreland in England. Roxburghshire and Berwickshire historically bore the brunt of the conflicts with England, both during declared wars such as the Wars of Scottish Independence, and armed raids, which took place in the times of the Border Reivers. Across the region one can see the ruins of many castles, abbeys and even towns.