Talk:Scottish Highlands

I note the article offers a definition of Scottish Highlands with respect to Scottish Lowlands, but ignores in its initial definition the existence of the Western Isles, Orkney and Shetland. Whether the Western Isles (where the Gaselic of Highlanders now best survives) should be excluded from the Highlands is somewhat debatable. Also the article ignores the more modern concept of Highlands and Islands which, in broad terms, brings together in one area the Highlands and the Far North (including Orkney and Shetland). Laurel Bush 09:33, 31 May 2005 (UTC).

In my Philips Atlas, this area (north-west of the Great Glen) is called the North West Highlands, and the Highland region itself is shown as including the Inner Hebrides and towns such as Newtonmore and Aviemore east of the Great Glen. Shantavira 14:23, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The area is described as the 'Highlands and Islands' in Scotland and the Outer Hebridies should be included in any article dealing with the contemporary highlands (historical references may distinguish between two seperate areas). User:An Siarach

Highlands or highlands

Surely the area in question is a proper noun, and should be refered to with a capital H? Grinner 11:35, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I just did a quick google search and almost all the first twenty results come back with 'Scottish Highlands', implying its use a proper noun. None of them are capitalised like this article. I think it's wrong, and it should be changed back as it was

Crosbiesmith 18:53, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Scottish highlands instead of Scottish Highlands does seem to me a bit like British isles instead of British Isles. Laurel Bush 13:12, 6 January 2006 (UTC).

And perhaps the article would be better merged with Scottish lowlands at Scottish Highlands and Lowlands. Laurel Bush 12:01, 7 January 2006 (UTC).

hmmm, that just complicates things if you ask me! I propose we return to capitals for now: a debate about potential merging can wait. I'll move it back tommorow unless someone objects. Grinner 10:58, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Couldn't move it, but I have made a requested move. Grinner 12:30, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Just thought I should draw attention to current usage of Scottish lowlands. And the two areas do seem to be mutually defining: if anywhere in Scotland is in the Highlands then it is not in the Lowlands. Laurel Bush 12:39, 10 January 2006 (UTC).

With the exceptions of Caithness, Orkney and Shetland, perhaps?--Mais oui! 14:18, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Requested move

Scottish highlands → Scottish Highlands – Highlands is a proper noun

Voting

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your vote with ~~~~

• Support - as per what I said! Grinner 12:29, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
• Support - using Scottish highlands is a bit like using British isles. Laurel Bush 12:36, 10 January 2006 (UTC).
• Oppose Why would it be a proper noun? I have lived there, and am still a frequent visitor, and in my experience both lower-case and upper-case are frequently used. The great frequency of the lower-case spelling suggests very strongly that it is not a proper noun, and that users of the upper-case version are making a political point: ie: POV.--Mais oui! 14:25, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
• Support It would be normal to capitalise. Astrotrain 21:33, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
• Support - capitalisation is the norm on other sites - Crosbiesmith 19:42, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
• Support - capitalised form is correct.--Cactus.man ✍ 07:43, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

Add any additional comments

If Highlands is not a proper noun then the existance/value of the entire article is questionable. Laurel Bush 16:59, 10 January 2006 (UTC).

How so? Tens of thousands of Wikipedia articles regard topics which are not proper nouns.--Mais oui! 19:00, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

If "Highland" is a making a political point, surely "highland" is simply making the opposite point? Grinner 13:45, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

In the first hundred results of a 'scottish highlands' search on google, over 90 are capitalized, and only two use 'Scottish highlands'. I know Mais oui! claims this form is frequently-used, but we need some verifiability here - Crosbiesmith 19:42, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Moved. —Nightstallion (?) 08:25, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Coming in a shade late, I'd like to add another point not referred to above. No-one living in the area would normally refer to the Scottish Highlands at all! The area is known either as The Highlands, or The Highlands and Islands. The Scottish Highlands is phrase an outsider, or a tourist agency might use in much the same way that Wikipedia does i.e. as a form of disambiguation. It is perhaps an interesting case where accuracy and clarity are in conflict with one another. If you take a close look at a Google search you should be able to detect this. Really the page should be called 'Highlands (of Scotland)'. Ben MacDui 08:47, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

You're right, but then people living in the islands call the largest island - "the mainland". This does not imply that we should be renaming Britain to Mainland, however. But this aside, I'd support Highlands (of Scotland) rather than "Scottish Highlands". --Lysy^talk 09:40, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Beginning of Highland-Lowland divide

Is first noted by John of Fordun in 1380. The presence of Anglo-Saxons in parts of the South centuries prior to this has no bearing on the fact that we have no evidence of an identifiable cultural split within the Scottish kingdom until this point. Also, the anglicization of the South and Lowlands is beyond doubt and, again, the presence of Angles in the Lothians prior to the founding of the Scottish kingdom has no bearing on the fact that their language and culture later displaced that of the Scots across the rest of the lowlands - hence its anglicization. Neither of these points is debated in my experience (prior to the edits to this article). I have certainly no memory of reading a single Scottish historian doubting the facts with regard to either.

An Siarach

Map?

Given the complicated geography involved, is there anyone out there that would like to draw a map for the article? This would be really helpful. Of course, if there is a good link out there, would be great too. A suggestion to those in the know! Isoxyl 19:38, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

I was also surprised not to see a map on this geography-related article. Maybe just take an existing map and color the areas Jeffhoy 18:10, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Here are two approximate and not very good maps I made. No doubt someone could do better.

Geological Highland Line

This is the geographic or is that geological highland line? To the south and east is the Lowlands, to the west and north the Highlands.

Linguistic Highland Line

This is the linguistic or cultural highland line. The situation would have been so about 1700. To the south and east is the Scots speaking areas, to the west and north the Scottish Gaelic speaking areas. The Scots speaking areas in the North of Ireland are also shown.

Nogger 17:26, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

The geological and linguistic Highland line images seem like they might have been promising—what happened to them? Athænara ✉ 18:14, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

They were deleted because dopey here gave the wrong copyright details. I hope I have done it correctly this time. I made them myself - honest! But I admit I do not hold the copyright to the outline of Scotland - who does?

Nogger 14:59, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

The map (geological Highland line) in the article appears inconsistent with the text and inconsistent with the generally recognized fact that the HIghland Boundary Fault is the delineating factor. Thus the Highlands boundary should follow the fault line and come all the way to the NOrth Sea north of Stonehaven. Cuvette 14:25, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Unless a credible explanation can be provided the map should be removed as it is misleading.Ben MacDui (Talk) 18:16, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Geological Highland line is perhaps wrong. What the map shows is where the low lying country is. At what height this begins or ends I don't know but will likely be where there is usually arable land as against steep hills and mountains. Nogger 23:45, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

moved some material from Religion section to Culture section

Hello there, I came across this article when I was disambiguating links and ended up doing some cleanup on the Religion section. I've moved some ofthat to the Culture section as I felt that was more appropriate. I've also removed the following text:

This is often not seen among Lowland Scots, where the Protestant population is often not as patriotic towards Scotland, indeed many Lowlanders often sympathise with the United Kingdom before Scotland. As for the Lowland Catholic population, they are often more concerned with Northern Irish/Irish national loyalty than with Scottish.

... which I felt didn't actually inform us about the Highlands and needed some sort of verification before I added it back. Feel free to amend/comment etc. Take care. Politepunk 19:02, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

I found the religion section strange almost Sectarian Roman Catholicism was not completely eradicated in the Highlands. I found several sources saying the reformation did not as strong effect as the English speaking lowlands. Gaelic speaking Highlanders many remained Catholic though predominately Protestant there is a significant Catholic population in the Scottish Highland and western isles.

Im a bit dubious about this section. I was under the impression that, southern isles of the Outer Hebrides aside, presbyterian protestantism had spread to pretty much the entirity of Scotland. Are there still some Catholic enclaves in the mainland who maintained their catholicism from prior to the reformation? An Siarach

Unofficial Flag of the Highlands

Utter tosh I'd say... Just because someone has setup a website in an attempt to "obtain" a flag doesn't...

I'll have a hunt round to see if this is really any bigger than just one individual.

/wangi 21:58, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Ive just deleted the section dealing with it as it seemed to me to be utter tosh as well. An Siarach

History?

Unlike, for instance, the article on Shetland, the highland one has virtually nothing about the history of the area - something to add, or write a new article about? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.189.136.126 (talk) 20:22, 31 December 2006 (UTC).

Highland Council Area section

The sentence about the police and fire looks as if it needs rewriting after being edited badly. The section on Highland Park seems unnecessary, it includes a sentence about HIE which would be better having its own section with a couple of sentences as well linking to its own page. Perhaps Highland Park can be added to the alternate meanings links at the top? --jmb 09:55, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, probably could do with a look at. I have removed the Highland Park section since it has nothing to do with this article, and shouldn't be in a dablink either (since nobody will type in "Scottish Highlands" expecting to get to an article on "Highland Park"). Thanks/wangi 11:25, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Why no Grampian towns?

Why is the list of towns devoid of Grampian locations? Cuvette 14:01, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Is the map at the right hand side being used as the definition of the boundary of the Highlands though it also includes the Western Isles and Orkney so perhaps more accurately could be defined at Highlands and Islands? A number of towns/villages near Aberdeen seem to being added even though not shown as in the Highlands on the map - Aboyne, Banchory. Also Stornoway when the page is headed Scottish Highlands, not Highlands & Islands. --jmb 11:07, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Per the discussion above under "MAP?", we are not using the map to which you allude Jmb. The Highlands are known to be bounded at the south at the NOrth Sea by the Highland Boundary Fault. (As far as your comment regarding the name, I think you have a good point, but wouldnt it be better to keep this article as it is and split off another article entitled "HIghlands and Islands" ? Regards. Cuvette 14:32, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Welcome to the Highlands?

Actually the sign in the picture is for Highland Council region which is not the same as the Scottish Highlands at all! --MacRusgail 21:07, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I had to alter this caption, yet again! --MacRusgail (talk) 20:26, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

"A sign on the boundary of the Highland council area implying, controversially, that the boudary is also that of the Scottish Highlands"

Why is it controversial? Lots of towns, counties, regions have a welcome sign with some sort of slogan. It is just a slogan and not expected to be absolutely accurate. Can we expect to see Trading Standards challenging with life in Nottinghamshire is actually legendary, Moray claims to be whisky country but whisky is also produced elsewhere, is Edinburgh actually "inspiring", is Angus/Forfarshire actually "Scotland's birthplace"? It just seems a convenient picture. --jmb (talk) 16:07, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Culture section seems rather sparse

"Culturally the area is quite different from the Scottish Lowlands." How so? Highland culture is so distinctive that after the Battle of Culloden, the British government took steps to eradicate that distinctiveness, and yet there isn't even a mention of this. At the very least, shouldn't there be a link back to the Scottish clan article? nmw 01:47, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Religon section needs some work

I took a look at the 2001 census for the Highland Council area (avaliable at http://195.173.143.171/plintra/iandr/cen/prof_high.htm) and according to it 48 percent of the council area's population is Church of Scotland, 12 percent other Christians (Free church mainly I would assume) and 6.8 percent Roman Catholic. I could not find the statistics for Na h-Eileanan Siar or Argyll (it's not online yet but will be soon at the SCROL site) but according to the 2003 GROS "Statistics for Inhabited Islands" report, 45 percent of islanders gave their religion as Church of Scotland while 7 percent gave it as Roman Catholic (avaliable here http://www.gro-scotland.gov.uk/press/news2003/01inhab-islands-press.html) Most of these Islands like Lewis, Harris, Skye, North Uist, South Uist et al would be in the area considered Highland. I think this article might give the wrong impression of the Scottish Highlands as a majority Roman Catholic area when in reality it's mainly COS or Free Church. In fact, the article's "strongholds" of Roman Catholicism are South Uist population 1818, Morar population 257, Barra population 1078 and Lochaber which is now part of the Highland Council area which as the 2001 census shows only 6.8 percent of its population is RC. However, Lewis and Harris with a population 19,918 of which the majority is Protestant seems to be presented as the minority. I think this article should show that while Roman Catholicism is very important to a small number of the Highland population, the overwhelming majority belongs to either the COS, The Free Church or any of their break off groups.99.249.132.254 (talk) 03:47, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough - but whatever you do, please cite your sources. The article is desperately in need of some! Ben MacDui^Talk/Walk 09:14, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

I tend to agree. Historically, yes, the Highlanders clung to Catholicism, but not now. Most are Protestant, although there are some very notable pockets of Catholicism, and Episcopalianism, which can veer towards it. It should be borne in mind though that many of the Presbyterians are "non-Conformists", i.e. not Church of Scotland, this is partly due to the historyy of the Clearances. In the Outer Hebrides, Barra and South Uist are solidly RC, and North Uist is pretty solidly Protestant, but between North and South Uist, there is a transition zone, and people have moved in modern times of course. The vast majority of printed material (before WWII) in Scottish Gaelic consisted of Protestant tracts etc, and the likes of Pilgrim's Progress in translation.

On an interesting sidenote, many people of Highland descent in Nova Scotia are Roman Catholic. This is essentially because many of them emigrated before the Reformation hit their home areas. The Reformation was late in arriving in northern Scotland - including the north east, some parts of Banffshire held out well - but when it did, boy, in some places did it arrive with a vengeance. Lewis, for example has the strongest Protestantism of anywhere in Scotland, without a doubt (excluding the secular "protestantism" of some football fans elsewhere). See also Religion of the yellow stick, for an idea of how some were converted. --MacRusgail (talk) 15:57, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Your right there MacRusgail, Inverness County in Cape Breton tends to be Roman Catholic, but Victora County tends to be all Presbyterian. The Gaelic College in Cape Breton was founded by a Presbyterian clergymen, but places like SFX definitly show that there is a very strong Roman Catholic tradition in Cape Breton.

I don't see why you have to say that "this area is this religion". That simply isn't true any more. Taking the Scottish Highlands as an example, there are now many people in the Scottish Highlands who have originated from Asia and the Middle East , taking religions such as Islam over. There are also a very large number of irreligious people in the Highlands, and to assume that everyone has a religion or strictly follows the religion they claim to be is highly misleading. 86.162.54.174 (talk) 23:13, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Central European Uplands

No doubt the recent edits on this subject were made in good faith, but they are well wide of the mark. This region is, to quote one of the sources used (MSN Encarta) "South of the Great European Plain". See [1] for a map. Ben MacDui^Talk/Walk 08:18, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi Ben. Maybe that map is newer or made by somebody with a different clasification system of what constitutes physiographic 'areas'? The master list I'm working on at Physiographic regions of the world is based on several handdrawn maps made by Erwin Raisz, A.K. Lobek, and Guy Harold-Smith. Unfortunately I'm on vacation the rest of the year and the maps are in my office, so I can't pull them out easily to see whose map I pulled the European 'areas' from. They were all done in the timeframe of around 1920'2 - 1960's. I found those refs I used yesterday in about 30 minutes of Google searching in an effort to at least have something. I used the Encarta ref merely to show the usage of the term Central European Uplands, since the first ref from Brigham Young used the term 'Hills', which obviously is an incorrect name. But, the Brigham Young site does list the Scottish Highlands and the Massif Central in the same physiographic 'area'. The Encarta reference does list the Massif Central as being in the Central European Uplands section as does the third reference as well. So if the BYU reference uses and obviously wrong name (more of just a generic name), but list several of the prominent provinces within the incorrectly named division, the other two references do use the correct division name (Central European Uplands) and list some of the same component provinces. Here's another ref that says "The central uplands and plateaus present distinctive landscapes of rounded summits, steep slopes, valleys, and depressions. Examples of such physiographic features can be found in the Southern Uplands of Scotland, the Massif Central of France, the Meseta Central of Spain, and the Bohemian Massif."[2] I ran across one yesterday (though I can't find it now) that said the Central European Uplands formed a horseshoe around the Great European Plain. This is such a broad category though (physiography), that several of the various branches have their own terms and boundaries for what the various 'areas' are. It also appears that many parts of the world have now defined various sub-sections that the maps I have didn't classify. So work on defining (or even re-defining) some of the areas still continues. If the above explanations meet your approval, I'll let you revert back. I don't need to get in an edit war over something so generally defined even after at least 60 years or so of work and definitions. I'm merely trying to offer a comprehensive listing of the world's various physiographical 'areas' in one place, since such a listing doesn't exist in any one source yet that I've found. It takes around a minimum of one 'good' source per continent to eventually compile the complete list, and it very well could be the various sources I've run across aren't as good as others, but that's not my call to make. I'm hoping by offering this list, others that do have the in-depth knowledge of this subject will improve upon it, but at least in the meantime, there's something others can hopefully find useful. wbfergus ^Talk 10:48, 6 December 2007 (UTC)