The largest island, known simply as "Mainland", has an area of , making it the third-largest Scottish island and the fifth-largest of the British Isles. Shetland is also a lieutenancy area, comprises the Shetland constituency of the Scottish Parliament, and was formerly a county.
Roman ethnography describes the Picts as ruling much of north Scotland. Shetland eventually became part of the Pictish kingdom.
Due to the practice, dating to at least the early Neolithic, of building in stone on the virtually tree-less islands, Shetland is extremely rich in physical remains of all these periods, though Shetland is less rich in material remains than Orkney. The artifacts of all the eras of Shetland's past can be studied at the newly built (2007) Shetland Museum in Lerwick. In 2010 "The Crucible of Iron Age Shetland" including Mousa, Old Scatness and Jarlshof was applied to join the "Tentative List" of World Heritage Sites.
Shetland was colonised by Norsemen in the 9th century, the fate of the existing indigenous population being uncertain. The colonisers gave it that name and established their laws and language. That language evolved into the West Nordic language Norn, which survived into the 19th century.
After Harald Finehair took control of all Norway, many of his opponents fled, some to Orkney and Shetland. From the Northern Isles they continued to raid Scotland and Norway, prompting Harald Hårfagre to raise a large fleet which he sailed to the islands. In about 875 he and his forces took control of Shetland and Orkney. Ragnvald, Earl of Møre received Orkney and Shetland as an earldom from the king as reparation for his son's being killed in battle in Scotland. Ragnvald gave the earldom to his brother Sigurd the Mighty.
Shetland was Christianised in the 10th century.
When Alexander III of Scotland turned twenty-one in 1262 and became of age he declared his intention of continuing the aggressive policy his father had begun towards the western and northern isles. This had been put on hold when his father had died thirteen years earlier. Alexander sent a formal demand to the Norwegian King Håkon Håkonsson.
After decades of civil war, Norway had achieved stability and grown to be a substantial nation with influence in Europe and the potential to be a powerful force in war. With this as a background, King Håkon rejected all demands from the Scots. The Norwegians regarded all the islands in the North Sea as part of the Norwegian realm. To add weight to his answer, King Håkon activated the leidang and set off from Norway in a fleet which is said to have been the largest ever assembled in Norway. The fleet met up in Breideyarsund in Shetland (probably today's Bressay Sound) before the king and his men sailed for Scotland and made landfall on Arran. The aim was to conduct negotiations with the army as a backup.
Alexander III drew out the negotiations while he patiently waited for the autumn storms to set in. Finally, after tiresome diplomatic talks, King Håkon lost his patience and decided to attack. At the same time a large storm set in which destroyed several of his ships and kept others from making landfall. The Battle of Largs in October 1263 was not decisive and both parties claimed victory, but King Håkon Håkonsson's position was hopeless. On 5 October, he returned to Orkney with a discontented army, and there he died of a fever on 17 December 1263. His death halted any further Norwegian expansion in Scotland.
King Magnus Lagabøte broke with his father's expansion policy and started negotiations with Alexander III. In the Treaty of Perth of 1266 he surrendered his furthest Norwegian possessions including Man and the Sudreyar (Hebrides) to Scotland in return for 4,000 marks sterling and an annuity of 100 marks. The Scots also recognised Norwegian sovereignty over Orkney and Shetland.
One of the main reasons behind the Norwegian desire for peace with Scotland was that trade with England was suffering from the constant state of war. In the new trade agreement between England and Norway in 1223 the English demanded Norway make peace with Scotland. In 1269, this agreement was expanded to include mutual free trade.
Following a legal dispute with William, Earl of Morton, who held the estates of Orkney and Shetland, Charles II ratified the pawning document by a Scottish Act of Parliament on 27 December 1669 which officially made the islands a Crown dependency and exempt from any "dissolution of His Majesty’s lands". In 1742 a further Act of Parliament returned the estates to a later Earl of Morton, although the original Act of Parliament specifically ruled that any future act regarding the islands status would be "considered null, void and of no effect".
The Shetland Bus sailed in covert operations between Norway and Shetland, carrying men from Company Linge, intelligence agents, refugees, instructors for the resistance, and military supplies. Many people on the run from the Germans, and much important information on German activity in Norway, were brought back to the Allies this way. Some mines were laid and direct action against German ships was also taken. At the start the unit was under a British command, but later Norwegians joined in the command.
The fishing vessels made 80 trips across the sea. German attacks and bad weather caused the loss of 10 boats, 44 crewmen, and 60 refugees. Because of the high losses it was decided to procure faster vessels. The Americans gave the unit the use of three submarine chasers (HNoMS Hessa, HNoMS Hitra and HNoMS Vigra). None of the trips with these vessels incurred loss of life or equipment.
The Shetland Bus made over 200 trips across the sea and the most famous of the men, Leif Andreas Larsen (Shetlands-Larsen) made 52 of them.
Income from oil and related economies has reduced emigration and vastly improved infrastructure throughout Shetland. Sheep farming also plays a big part in Shetland today as does fishing.
As a result of the oil revenue and the cultural links with Norway, a small independence movement developed briefly. It saw as its model the Isle of Man, as well as its closest neighbour, the Faroe Islands, an autonomous dependency of Denmark.
The landscape and the light found in Shetland have been an inspiration to many artists in the fields of painting, drawing and sculpturing, both local and from elsewhere. There are several local art galleries. As with other Scottish dialects, the Shetland dialect, a mixture of old English, Scots and Norse words, was actively discouraged in schools, churches and civic life until the late 20th century, but has since then been restored as a language of culture. It is used both in local radio and dialect writing, and kept alive by Shetland ForWirds, the Shetland Folk Society and the quarterly New Shetlander magazine.
Up Helly Aa is one of a variety of fire festivals held in Shetland annually in the middle of winter. The festival is just over 100 years old in its present, highly organised form. Originally a temperance festival held to break up the long nights of winter the festival has become one celebrating the isles heritage and includes a procession of men dressed as Vikings, the burning of a replica longship and copious amounts of alcohol. The main Up Helly Aa in Lerwick bars women from taking part in the processions of guizers. Instead, women prepare food for the big night.
Shetland competes in the biennial Island Games, which it hosted in 2005.
Although Norn was spoken for hundreds of years it is now extinct and few written sources remain.
Example of the Lord's Prayer in Shetland Norn: Shetland Norn
: Fy vor or er i Chimeri. : Halaght vara nam dit. : La Konungdum din cumma. : La vill din vera guerde : ''i vrildin sin da er i chimeri. : Gav vus dagh u dagloght brau. : Forgive sindorwara sin vi forgiva gem ao sinda gainst wus. : Lia wus ikè o vera tempa, but delivra wus fro adlu idlu. : For do i ir Kongungdum, u puri, u glori, Amen
Old Norse version
: Faþer vár es ert í himenríki, : verði nafn þitt hæilagt : Til kome ríke þitt, : værði vili þin : sva an iarðu sem í himnum. : Gef oss í dag brauð vort dagligt : Ok fyr gefþu oss synþer órar, : sem vér fyr gefom þeim er viþ oss hafa misgert : Leiðd oss eigi í freistni, : heldr leys þv oss frá öllu illu.
As Norn was gradually replaced by Scots Shetland became (the initial letter being the Middle Scots letter, yogh (which can also be found in the name Menzies). This sounded almost identical to the original Norn sound, ). When the letter yogh was discontinued, it was often replaced by the similar-looking letter 'z', hence Zetland, the mispronounced form used to describe the pre-1975 county council.
In early Irish literature, Shetland is referred to as Inse Catt - "the Isles of Cats". This is considered to represent the pre-Norse name for the islands. The Cat tribe also occupied parts of the northern Scottish mainland - they can be found in the name of Caithness, and in the Gaelic name for Sutherland (Cataibh, meaning "among the Cats").
The reasoning behind the design was a desire to illustrate that Shetland had been a part of Norway for 500 years and a part of Scotland for 500 years. The colours are identical to the ones in Flag of Scotland, but shaped in the Nordic cross and is the same design Icelandic republicans used in the early 20th century known in Iceland as Hvítbláinn, the white-blue.
In 1975 when the new Shetland Islands Council came into being Grönneberg wanted his proposed flag to become the official flag of Shetland, but was unsuccessful. A plebiscite in 1985 also failed to give it official status. Finally, in 2005 the Lord Lyon King of Arms approved the flag as the official flag of Shetland.
Fair Isle lies approximately halfway between Shetland and Orkney, but it is administered as part of Shetland. The Out Skerries lie east of the main group. Due to the islands' latitude, on clear winter nights the aurora borealis or "northern lights" can sometimes be seen in the sky, while in summer there is almost perpetual daylight, a state of affairs known locally as the "simmer dim".
The general character of the climate is windy and cloudy with at least of rain falling on about 200 days a year. Average yearly precipitation at Lerwick is , with November and December the wettest months, together receiving about a quarter of annual precipitation. Snowfall can occur at any time from July to early June although it seldom lies on the ground for more than a day. Less rain falls from April to August although no month receives less than . Fog is common in the east of the islands during summer due to the cooling effect of the sea on mild southerly airflows.
There is a wide variation in day length during the course of the year due the islands' northerly location. On the shortest day at the winter solstice sunlight lasts 3 hours and 45 minutes and this stretches to 23 hours at the summer solstice, with twilight occupying the remainder of the time. However, the remoteness of the islands from warm and dry airflows means that all months are cloudy. Annual sunshine hours average 1065 hours so sunny days are rare and overcast days are common. in Middle Old Red Sandstone on the Isle of Bressay]]
The geographical isolation and recent glacial history of Shetland have resulted in a depleted mammalian fauna. The Wood Mouse (Apodemus sylvaticus L.), along with the Brown Rat (Rattus norvegicus Berkenhout) and the House Mouse (Mus musculus domesticus), are the only recorded types of rodent present on the island. Based largely on morphological studies of epigenetic variations, the source of the original founding population has been attributed to Norway with the most obvious date of introduction being presumed to be around the 9th century AD with the arrival of the Vikings. However, archaeological evidence now suggests that this species was present during the Middle Iron Age (around 200 BC - AD 400), and one theory proposes that Apodemus was in fact introduced from Orkney where a population had existed since at the least the Bronze Age.
The High-finned sperm whale is a supposed cryptid relative of the sperm whale that is said to live in the seas around the Shetland. The difference between this creature and other sperm whales is said to be the presence of a tall dorsal fin on its back, which the sperm whale lacks. Two such stranded whales were apparently observed by Sir Robert Sibbald who described their dorsal fins as being similar to a "mizzen mast".
There are 22 wards:
1. Sound
2. Clickimin
3. North Central
4. Breiwick
5. South Central
6. Harbour and Bressay
7. North
8. Upper Sound, Gulberwick and Quarff
9. Unst and Island of Fetlar
10. Yell
11. Northmavine, Muckle Roe and Busta
12. Delting West
13. Delting East and Lunnasting
14. Nesting, Whiteness, Girlsta and Gott
15. Scalloway
16. Whalsay/Skerries also known as Out Skerries
17. Sandsting, Aithsting and Weisdale
18. Walls, Sandness and Clousta
19. Burra/Trondra
20. Cunningsburgh and Sandwick
21. Sandwick, Levenwick and Bigton
22. Dunrossness
Fishing has been an integral part of Shetland's economy since prehistory and it remains central to the islands' economy even today. It was also important in bringing in commerce from outside the isles, for example the 17th century Hanseatic traders and Victorian-era herring activities.
The main revenue producers in Shetland today are agriculture, aquaculture, fishing and the petroleum industry (crude oil and natural gas production). Farming is mostly concerned with the raising of Shetland sheep, known for their unusually fine wool. Crops raised include oats and barley; however, the cold, windswept islands make for a harsh environment for most plants. Crofting, the farming of small plots of land on a legally restricted tenancy basis, is still practiced and viewed as a key Shetland tradition as well as important source of income.
More recently, oil reserves discovered in the 20th century out to sea have provided a much needed alternative source of income for the islands. The East Shetland Basin is one of Europe's largest oil fields. Oil produced there is landed at the Sullom Voe terminal in Shetland. Taxes from the oil have increased spending on social welfare, art, sport, environmental measures and financial development. Three quarters of the islands work force is employed in the service sector. Even though oil makes up 15% of the islands' economy, (£116 million a year), the fish-related industry generates twice as much income and employs three times as many workers. The oil revenue allows increased expenditure by the Shetland Islands Council, which alone accounted for 27.9% of employment in 2003.
For the last 25 years unemployment has been under 5% and as of 2004 was 2%, but the fluctuations in the market for farmed salmon and trawled white fish leads to seasonal changes in unemployment.
In January 2007, the Shetland Islands Council signed a partnership agreement with Scottish and Southern Energy for a 200-turbine wind farm and subsea cable. The renewable energy project would produce about 600 megawatts and contribute about £20 million to the Shetland economy per year. The plan is meeting significant opposition within the islands, primarily resulting from the anticipated visual impact of the development.
Radio service is provided by BBC Radio Shetland (the local opt-out of BBC Radio Scotland) and SIBC, a commercial radio station.
aircraft on Fair Isle, midway between Orkney and Shetland]]
Sumburgh Airport, the main airport on Shetland, is located close to Sumburgh, south of Lerwick. Loganair operates flights for FlyBe to other parts of the British Isles seven times a day. The destinations are Kirkwall, Aberdeen, Inverness, Glasgow and Edinburgh. In the summer months, there are also flights to London Stansted and the Faeroes operated by the Faeroese airliner Atlantic Airways.
Inter-Island flights from the Shetland Mainland to Fair Isle, Foula, Papa Stour, and Out Skerries are operated from Tingwall Airport 11 km west of Lerwick, by Directflight Ltd., using Islander aircraft owned by the Shetland Islands Council.
There are frequent charter flights from Aberdeen to Scatsta (near Sullom Voe), which are used to transport oilfield workers.
A Public Travel and also Travel Agent called John Leask and Son (also known as Leasks of Lerwick or Leasks Travel) founded in 1919, based in Lerwick opearte a Public Bus Service round Shetland.
The political composition of the Council is 22 Independents.
In Shetland there are a total of 34 schools: two High Schools, seven Junior High Schools with primary and nursery departments, and 25 Primary Schools. The High Schools are Anderson High School and Brae High School. Shetland is also home to the North Atlantic Fisheries College.
The Shetland NHS is the local Scottish health service in the Shetland Islands.
* M. P. Shiel's 1896 story, Vaila (later revised as House of Sounds), concerns the Shetland island of the same name.
*Hugh MacDiarmid, the Scots poet and writer lived in Whalsay from the mid-1930s through 1942, and wrote many poems there, including a number that directly address or reflect the Shetland environment (e.g. "On A Raised Beach").
* Hammond Innes' 1975 novel North Star is largely set in Shetland.
* The first section of Raman Mundair's 2007 book A Choreographer's Cartography is "60 degrees north" - a series of poems, some in the Shetland dialect, that reflect the poet's experiences of Shetland and offers a unique British Asian perspective on the landscape.
* The English mystery writer Ann Cleeves has written a series of three novels set in the Shetland Islands and featuring the detective Jimmy Perez (supposedly descended from a survivor of a shipwreck during the battle with the Spanish Armada which had been blown off course during a storm). The novels (Raven Black, White Nights, and Red Bones) include detailed descriptions of the islands, their landscapes and their people.
Category:Counties of Scotland Category:Highlands and Islands of Scotland Category:Former Norwegian colonies Category:National Scenic Areas in Scotland Category:Northern Isles Category:Lieutenancy areas of Scotland Category:Council areas of Scotland
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