Scottish Highlands

The Highlands (Scottish Gaelic: A' Ghàidhealtachd, "the place of the Gaels"; Scots: the Hielands) are a historic region of Scotland. The region became culturally distinguishable from the Lowlands from the later Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Scots replaced Scottish Gaelic throughout most of the Lowlands. The term is also used for the area north and west of the Highland Boundary Fault, although the exact boundaries are not clearly defined, particularly to the east. The Great Glen divides the Grampian Mountains to the southeast from the Northwest Highlands. The Scottish Gaelic name of A' Ghàidhealtachd literally means "the place of the Gaels" and traditionally, from a Gaelic-speaking point of view, includes both the Western Isles and the Highlands.

The area is very sparsely populated, with many mountain ranges dominating the region, and includes the highest mountain in the British Isles, Ben Nevis. Before the 19th century the Highlands was home to a much larger population, but due to a combination of factors including the outlawing of the traditional Highland way of life following the Jacobite Rising of 1745, the infamous Highland Clearances, and mass migration to urban areas during the Industrial Revolution, the area is now one of the most sparsely populated in Europe. At 9.1 per km² in 2012, the population density in the Highlands and Islands is less than 1/7th of Scotland's as a whole, comparable with that of Bolivia, Chad and Russia.

Lowland Clearances

The Lowland Clearances were one of the results of the Scottish Agricultural Revolution, which changed the traditional system of agriculture which had existed in Lowland Scotland in the seventeenth century. Thousands of cottars and tenant farmers from the southern counties (Lowlands) of Scotland migrated from farms and small holdings they had occupied to the new industrial centres of Glasgow, Edinburgh and northern England or abroad, or remaining upon land though adapting to the Scottish Agricultural Revolution.

History

As farmland became more commercialised in Scotland during the 18th century, land was often rented through auctions. This led to an inflation of rents that priced many tenants out of the market. Furthermore, changes in agricultural practice meant the replacement of part-time labourer or subtenants (known as cottars, cottagers, or bondsmen) with full-time agricultural labourers who lived either on the main farm or in rented accommodation in growing or newly founded villages. This led many contemporary writers and modern historians to associate the Agricultural Revolution with the disappearance of cottars and their way of life from many parts of the southern Scotland.

Scottish

Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including:

See also

Highland

The term highland or uplands is used to denote any mountainous region or elevated mountainous plateau. Generally speaking, upland (or uplands) tends to refer to ranges of hills, typically up to 500-600 m. Highland (or highlands) is usually reserved for ranges of low mountains.

Highlands worldwide

Probably the most known highlands in the anglophone world are the Scottish Highlands in the United Kingdom, the mountainous region north and west of the Highland Boundary Fault. The Highland council area is a local government area in the Scottish Highlands and Britain's largest local government area.

Many countries have areas that are officially or unofficially referred to as highlands. Other than Scotland, these include parts Ethiopia, Kenya, Eritrea, Yemen, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Syria, Cantabria and Nova Scotia (the latter being Latin for 'New Scotland' due to its resemblance to the country).

Synonymous terms used in other countries include high country, used in New Zealand, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and Southern Queensland in Australia, and parts of the United States (notably Western North Carolina), and highveld, used in South Africa.

Tom Devine

Sir Thomas Martin Devine, Kt OBE FRSE MRIA FRHistS (born 30 July 1945), is a Scottish academic historian.

Devine's main research interest is the history of the Scottish nation since c. 1600 and its global connections and impact. He is regarded as the leading authority on the history of modern Scotland and its diaspora.

Biography

Born in Motherwell,Scotland, Devine was educated at the University of Strathclyde from 1964 to 1968, and graduated with first class honours in Economic and Social History, followed by a PhD and DLitt. He rose through the academic ranks from Assistant Lecturer to Reader, Professor, Head of Department, and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences; he was Deputy Principal of Strathclyde University from 1993 until 1997. In 1998 he accepted the Directorship of the world's first Centre of advanced research in Irish and Scottish Studies at the University of Aberdeen (the Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies), which was formally inaugurated by President Mary McAleese of Ireland on St Andrew's Day 1999. Over the following five years, over £2.5m was raised for the Centre's research programmes from AHRC – which led to the establishment of the AHRC Centre for Irish and Scottish Studies, funded competitively over 2 phases – the Leverhulme Trust and the British Academy, and a further £1.6m endowment given by the Glucksman family in the USA for a Research Chair in Irish and Scottish Studies, which Devine held as Founding Professor until 2005.