Scotland, United Kingdom — Towns & Travel Guide

What is Scotland known for?

Scotland's reputation rests on its Highlands, the sweep of mountain, moor, and sea loch that fills the north and west, where Ben Nevis rises as the highest peak in the British Isles. Two cities anchor the south. Edinburgh holds the castle, the Royal Mile, and the world's largest arts festival each August.

Glasgow, the largest city, trades on shipbuilding heritage along the River Clyde and a heavy music scene. Then there is whisky, and the search for monsters in Loch Ness.

Where is Scotland?

Scotland fills the northern third of the island of Great Britain. It shares one land border, running with England from the Solway Firth in the west to the River Tweed in the east. Every other edge is water.

The Atlantic Ocean wraps the north and west, the North Sea lies to the east, and the Irish Sea narrows toward the south-west. Offshore, the land breaks into hundreds of islands, chiefly the Inner Hebrides and Outer Hebrides along the west and the Northern Isles of Orkney and Shetland far to the north. Inland, one line orders the whole country.

The Highland Boundary Fault cuts from Arran and Helensburgh in the west across to Stonehaven on the east coast, splitting the hard, high Highlands from the softer Lowlands below. North and west of it stand the Grampian Mountains and the Cairngorms, and Ben Nevis, the highest peak in the British Isles. South of it lie the Central Lowlands, where most people live, and the rivers gather: the Clyde running west through Glasgow to its firth, the Forth reaching the sea past Edinburgh, and the Tay, the longest river in Scotland.

The Southern Uplands roll up again toward the English border. Loch Ness and Loch Lomond fill long glacial troughs between the hills.

What is Scotland like?

Three tongues shape Scotland. English is the everyday language, but Scots, a Germanic cousin of English, runs through the Lowlands, and Scottish Gaelic still holds in the Hebrides and parts of the Highlands. Names on the land carry all three.

The written word matters here: Robert Burns, the national poet, is toasted every January on Burns Night with haggis and recitation, and Edinburgh has produced novelists from Walter Scott to Robert Louis Stevenson. Edinburgh's Old Town and the Georgian New Town together form a World Heritage Site. The Highland traditions travel furthest.

Tartan cloth, the kilt, the bagpipes, and the clan system grew in the glens and were later adopted as national symbols. Summer brings Highland Games to towns across the country, with the caber toss, the hammer, and pipe bands. A ceilidh, an evening of folk music and dancing, still fills village halls.

Whisky is the other export, distilled from Speyside to Islay and known in Gaelic as the water of life. Golf began here too, on the links at St Andrews. Each August the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the largest arts festival anywhere, packs the capital with theatre and comedy.

What is the history of Scotland?

The Kingdom of Scotland traces to the year 843, when Kenneth MacAlpin drew the Picts and the Gaels of Dál Riata under a single crown as the kingdom of Alba. Independence was hard won. Robert the Bruce beat the English at Bannockburn in 1314, and the border held for centuries.

The crowns joined in 1603, and the Acts of Union of 1707 merged the parliaments into Great Britain. A devolved Scottish Parliament returned to Edinburgh in 1999.

What is the climate of Scotland?

Scotland has a cool, wet maritime climate, kept mild for its northern position by the North Atlantic Drift that carries warm water up the western seaboard. The west is wettest. Atlantic fronts drop heavy rain on the Highlands and the Hebrides, while the east coast around Aberdeen stays drier and cooler.

Winters are long rather than harsh, and snow lingers on the Cairngorms into spring. Bright days come between the showers.

How do you get to Scotland?

Most visitors arrive by air, and the busiest gateways are the airports at Edinburgh and Glasgow, with Aberdeen and Inverness taking traffic in the north and east. The railway runs south to England. Trains from London reach Edinburgh and Glasgow in a few hours along the east and west coast lines.

The one land border with England feeds the motorways north. For the islands, ferries and short flights link the mainland to Skye, the Outer Hebrides, Orkney, and Shetland.