Highland Scotland

The region whose society was dismantled by policy after a failed rebellion, and then emptied of people to make room for sheep. The Highlands were Gaelic-speaking and organised in clans, a kinship system in which the chief held land on behalf of the people rather than as private property in the English sense. That distinction is the whole story. After Culloden in 1746 the government banned the carrying of arms, the wearing of tartan and the heritable jurisdictions through which chiefs governed, converting them into landlords with saleable estates and no obligations. The Clearances followed across the next century: tenants were removed, sometimes violently, to make way for sheep and later deer, and emigrated to Canada, the Carolinas and Australia in enormous numbers. Gaelic declined steeply, helped by schooling in English. The Crofters Act of 1886 finally gave security of tenure after the Battle of the Braes. The region now has among the lowest population densities in Europe, and much of the land is held in very large private estates. Gaelic has around sixty thousand speakers. The pipes, the tartan and the diaspora's version of Highland identity all date largely from after the destruction. The region covers roughly half of Scotland's land and holds a small fraction of its people. Inverness is the only city. Ben Nevis is the highest point in the British Isles. The West Highland Way and the North Coast 500 now carry substantial tourism. Whisky distilling is concentrated in Speyside and the islands, and is among Scotland’s largest exports.

• Existed: 843 CE – present
• Type: Entity