The Highlands and Islands is an area of

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

broadly covering the

Scottish Highlands The Highlands ( sco, the Hielands; gd, a’ Ghàidhealtachd , 'the place of the Gaels') is a historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Highlands and the Lowlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland S ...

, plus Orkney, Shetland and Outer Hebrides (Western Isles). The Highlands and Islands are sometimes defined as the area to which the Crofters' Act of 1886 applied. This area consisted of eight counties of Scotland: *

Argyll Argyll (; archaically Argyle, in modern Gaelic, ), sometimes called Argyllshire, is a historic county and registration county of western Scotland. Argyll is of ancient origin, and corresponds to most of the part of the ancient kingdom of ...

* Caithness * Inverness *

Nairn Nairn (; gd, Inbhir Narann) is a town and royal burgh in the Highland council area of Scotland. It is an ancient fishing port and market town around east of Inverness, at the point where the River Nairn enters the Moray Firth. It is the tradi ...

* Orkney * Ross and Cromarty * Shetland * Sutherland Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) uses a broader definition also used at Eurostat's NUTS level 2, and there has been a Highlands and Islands electoral region of the Scottish Parliament since 1999. In '' Highlands and Islands Fire and Rescue Service'' the name refers to the

local government Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of public administration within a particular sovereign state. This particular usage of the word government refers specifically to a level of administration that is both geographically-l ...

areas (

council areas For local government purposes, Scotland is divided into 32 areas designated as "council areas" ( gd, comhairlean), which are all governed by single-tier authorities designated as "councils". They have the option under the Local Government (Ga ...

) of

Highland Highlands or uplands are areas of high elevation such as a mountainous region, elevated mountainous plateau or high hills. Generally speaking, upland (or uplands) refers to ranges of hills, typically from up to while highland (or highlands) is ...

, Orkney, Shetland and the

Western Isles The Outer Hebrides () or Western Isles ( gd, Na h-Eileanan Siar or or ("islands of the strangers"); sco, Waster Isles), sometimes known as the Long Isle/Long Island ( gd, An t-Eilean Fada, links=no), is an island chain off the west coast ...

. ''Northern'', as in ''

Northern Constabulary The Northern Constabulary ( gd, Poileas a' Chinn a Tuath) was the territorial police force responsible for Northern Scotland, covering the Highland council area along with the Western Isles, the Orkney Islands and the Shetland Islands, which mak ...

'', is also used to refer to this area. As of early 2021,

Police Scotland Police Scotland ( gd, Poileas Alba), officially the Police Service of Scotland (), is the national police force of Scotland. It was formed in 2013, through the merging of eight regional police forces in Scotland, as well as the specialist service ...

operated six Command Areas in Highlands and Islands: North Highland, Inverness, South Highland, Orkney Islands, Shetland Island and Western Isles. Each had a Local Area Commander and a Chief Inspector. The police service works in partnership with Highland Council, Shetland, Orkney and Western Isles Councils. The

HITRANS The Highlands and Islands Transport Partnership (HITRANS) is the statutory regional transport partnership for Na h-Eileanan Siar, Highland, Moray, Orkney Islands and Argyll and Bute (less the Helensburgh and Lomond area, which is covered by th ...

(Highlands and Islands Partnership for Transport), established in 2006, covers most of the council areas of

Argyll and Bute Argyll and Bute ( sco, Argyll an Buit; gd, Earra-Ghàidheal agus Bòd, ) is one of 32 unitary authority council areas in Scotland and a lieutenancy area. The current lord-lieutenant for Argyll and Bute is Jane Margaret MacLeod (14 July 2020) ...

, Moray, Orkney and the

. Shetland is covered by the separate Shetland Partnership for Transport. Helensburgh and Lomond is covered by SPT. A 2018 estimate stated that population was 469,365, an increase of 0.5% from 2011. A higher than average percentage were self-employed compared to Scotland (11.0% compared to 8.7%). The unemployment rate was lower than in Scotland in general, 2.3% vs. 3.2%, and the employment rate was higher at 78.6% vs. 74.7%. The restrictions required by the worldwide pandemic increased unemployment in the Highlands and Islands in summer 2020 to 5.7%; that was significantly higher than the 2.4 per cent in 2019. The rates were said to be highest in "Lochaber, Skye and Wester Ross and Argyll and the Islands". A December 2020 report stated that between March (just before the effects of pandemic were noted) and December, the unemployment rate increased by "more than 97%" and suggested that the outlook was even worse for spring 2021.

Politics

Highlands and Islands is an electoral region of the Scottish Parliament. In the 2007 election, this region was the last to declare its regional votes, which were the decisive results in determining that the Scottish National Party overtook Scottish Labour to obtain the largest representation in the Scottish Parliament by one seat. In the June 2017 election,

Angus MacNeil Angus Brendan MacNeil ( gd, Aonghas Brianan MacNèill; born 21 July 1970) is the Scottish National Party (SNP) Member of Parliament (MP) for covering the Outer Hebrides. Background MacNeil was educated at Castlebay Secondary School on the isla ...

Drew Hendry Andrew Egan Henderson Hendry (born 1964), known as Drew Hendry, is a Scottish National Party (SNP) politician serving as Member of Parliament (MP) for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey since 2015. He has been serving as SNP Foreign Aff ...

and

Ian Blackford Ian Blackford (born 14 May 1961) is a Scottish politician who served as Leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) in the House of Commons from 2017 to 2022. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Ross, Skye and Lochaber since 2015. Or ...

(all SNP) were re-elected in Highlands and Islands. One new MP was elected, Jamie Stone(Lib Dem).

References

{{- * Geography of Scotland Regions of Scotland Geography of Highland (council area) Geography of Orkney Geography of Shetland Islands of Argyll and Bute NUTS 2 statistical regions of the United Kingdom

Politics

See also

References