The Highlands & Islands

The islands hold some of Europe's finest prehistoric remains. Orkney's Neolithic village of Skara Brae and its stone circles are around 5,000 years old, the standing stones of Calanais on Lewis are of similar age, and later Iron Age brochs, tall drystone towers, survive in Shetland and Caithness. Picts held the north and east, while from about 500 AD Gaels from Ireland built the kingdom of Dál Riata in Argyll, with Dunadd as a royal fort. In 563 St Columba founded the monastery on Iona.

From the late 8th century Vikings settled the islands. Orkney and Shetland were ruled by Norse earls and passed to Scotland only in 1468–69 as a pledge for a Danish princess's dowry, and the Hebrides stayed Norse until 1266. In the Middle Ages the MacDonald Lords of the Isles ruled much of the west until the crown suppressed them in 1493.

The clan system shaped the mainland until the 18th century. The Massacre of Glencoe in 1692 and the Jacobite risings ended at Culloden, near Inverness, in 1746, after which the government dismantled clan power. In the Highland Clearances of the late 18th and 19th centuries landlords evicted tenants to make way for sheep, sending many to the coast, the cities or abroad; protest on Skye and elsewhere led to the Crofters Act of 1886. In the 20th century Scapa Flow was a naval base in both world wars, oil came to Shetland and Orkney in the 1970s, and community land buyouts such as Eigg in 1997 have since returned estates to local ownership.

Gaelic is the region's living heritage. It is strongest in the Outer Hebrides, where it is the everyday language in many communities, and survives on Skye and in parts of Argyll. Place names across the Highlands are Gaelic, and Gaelic song, piping and the ceilidh remain central. The Royal National Mòd is the main festival of Gaelic music and poetry.

Orkney and Shetland feel different again. Their speech carries Norse words from the extinct Norn language, Shetlanders often look to Norway as much as to Edinburgh, and Lerwick's Up Helly Aa ends with the burning of a replica Viking galley. Kirkwall's Ba' game, a mass street football match, is played at Christmas and New Year, and Shetland has a strong fiddle tradition.

Religion runs deep in Lewis and Harris, where Presbyterian churches keep the Sabbath and Sunday activity remains limited. Crafts include Harris Tweed, which must by law be hand-woven in the Outer Hebrides, and Fair Isle knitting. Shinty, a fast stick-and-ball game, is the Highland sport, and Highland games are held in many villages each summer. Hospitality is strong, with ceilidh dances, and local shops and halls act as the centre of community life.

Around 400,000 people live across an area larger than some European countries. Inverness, with about 50,000, is the only city; Fort William, Oban, Thurso and Wick are small towns, and the island capitals of Stornoway, Kirkwall and Lerwick have around 10,000 people or fewer each. Many villages have only a few hundred residents.

Crofting — small-scale tenant farming combined with other jobs — still shapes the west and the islands. Tourism is the biggest employer, alongside fishing, salmon farming, whisky, forestry, public services and renewable energy, from onshore wind farms to Orkney's tidal-energy test centre; Shetland still hosts the Sullom Voe oil terminal.

Current issues include depopulation of young people, housing lost to holiday lets and second homes, unreliable ferries on an ageing fleet, and pressure from visitor traffic on single-track roads. Daily life follows the weather, the ferry timetable and the seasons, with long summer evenings and short winter days, especially in Shetland.

Seafood is the region's great resource: langoustines, scallops, crab and lobster from the west coast, oysters from Loch Fyne in Argyll, and smoked salmon and farmed salmon from the sea lochs. Venison from the hills, hill lamb, and Highland and Orkney beef fill the menus, and Stornoway black pudding, a rich oatmeal-and-blood sausage, has protected status.

The islands have their own traditions. Shetland's reestit mutton is salted and dried mutton used to flavour soup, and Orkney produces cheese, fudge and bere bannocks made from an ancient barley. Crowdie is a soft Highland crofter's cheese, and cranachan layers oats, cream, whisky and raspberries.

Whisky is everywhere. Islay, in Argyll, is famous for peated malts such as Laphroaig, Lagavulin and Ardbeg; Skye has Talisker, Orkney Highland Park and Scapa, Mull Tobermory, and Oban its own distillery. Isle of Harris gin is made at Tarbert, and the northern isles and Highlands have a growing number of small breweries and distilleries.

Inverness has its castle and river walks, with Culloden battlefield and the Clava Cairns nearby. Loch Ness stretches southwest along the Great Glen past Urquhart Castle and the Caledonian Canal locks at Fort Augustus to Fort William, beneath Ben Nevis at 1,345 metres. West of Fort William the Jacobite steam train crosses the Glenfinnan Viaduct on its way to Mallaig. Glencoe's Three Sisters and Buachaille Etive Mòr draw walkers and climbers, and the Cairngorms National Park has Aviemore, Loch Morlich and the Cairn Gorm funicular.

The Isle of Skye, linked by bridge, has the Cuillin, the Old Man of Storr, the Quiraing, the Fairy Pools and Dunvegan Castle, with Eilean Donan Castle on the mainland approach. Further north are Torridon, Assynt and the North Coast 500 road to Dunnet Head, the northernmost point of mainland Britain.

In Argyll, Oban is the ferry port for Mull, with Tobermory's painted harbour, Duart Castle, and trips to Iona Abbey and Fingal's Cave on Staffa; Inveraray, Kilmartin Glen and Islay's distilleries lie to the south.

Orkney has Skara Brae, the Ring of Brodgar, Maeshowe, St Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall, the Italian Chapel and Scapa Flow. Shetland has Jarlshof, Mousa Broch and the puffins of Sumburgh Head. In the Outer Hebrides are Calanais, the beaches of Luskentyre on Harris, Barra's beach airfield and, far out in the Atlantic, St Kilda, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.