Hunda is an uninhabited island in the

Orkney Orkney (; sco, Orkney; on, Orkneyjar; nrn, Orknøjar), also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago in the Northern Isles of Scotland, situated off the north coast of the island of Great Britain. Orkney is 10 miles (16 km) north ...

archipelago in

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

. It is in extent and rises to

above sea level Height above mean sea level is a measure of the vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) of a location in reference to a historic mean sea level taken as a vertical datum. In geodesy, it is formalized as ''orthometric heights''. The comb ...

. It is situated in

Scapa Flow Scapa Flow viewed from its eastern end in June 2009 Scapa Flow (; ) is a body of water in the Orkney Islands, Scotland, sheltered by the islands of Mainland, Graemsay, Burray,S. C. George, ''Jutland to Junkyard'', 1973. South Ronaldsay and ...

and connected to the nearby island of

Burray Burray () is one of the Orkney Islands in Scotland. It lies to the east of Scapa Flow and is one of a chain of islands linked by the Churchill Barriers. Geography and geology Burray lies between Mainland, Orkney and South Ronaldsay, and is li ...

by a causeway built in 1941 to stop passage of small surface craft as part of the

boom defence A boom or a chain (also boom defence, harbour chain, river chain, chain boom, boom chain or variants) is an obstacle strung across a navigable stretch of water to control or block navigation. In modern times they usually have civil uses, such as ...

s, and thence to the

Orkney Mainland The Mainland, also known as Hrossey and Pomona, is the main island of Orkney, Scotland. Both of Orkney's burghs, Kirkwall and Stromness, lie on the island, which is also the heart of Orkney's ferry and air connections. Seventy-five per cent of O ...

via the

Churchill Barriers The Churchill Barriers are four causeways in the Orkney islands with a total length of . They link the Orkney Mainland in the north to the island of South Ronaldsay via Burray and the two smaller islands of Lamb Holm and Glimps Holm. The ba ...

. The name is derived from the

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...

for 'dog island'. The

Viking Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...

s made the Orkney Islands their headquarters for their expeditions against Scotland and Norway, and the islands were under the rule of Norse earls until 1231. The island is rich in bird life, and contains a disused quarry. A small inlet in the northern cliffs is known as 'Sunless Geo'. Hunda is currently used to raise sheep and goats for wool.

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Uninhabited islands of Orkney {{Orkney-geo-stub

See also

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