Scotland

Ap olozan Andrei
St oian Andra
Stoian An dreea
General Information
 Scotland is a country that is part of the United
Kingdom with a population of approximately
5,194,000 citizens.
 Occupying the northern third of the island of Great
Britain, it shares a border with England to the
south and is bounded by the North Sea to the
east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west,
and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the
southwest.
 In addition to the mainland, Scotland includes over
790 islands including the Northern Isles and the
Hebrides.
 Edinburgh, the country's capital and second
largest city, is one of Europe's largest financial
centres.
 Edinburgh was the hub of the Scottish
Enlightenment of the 18th century, which
transformed Scotland into one of the
The Kingdom of Scotland was an independent
sovereign state before 1707, although it had
been in a personal union with the Kingdom of
England since James VI of Scotland
succeeded to the English throne in 1603.
On 1 May 1707 Scotland entered into an
incorporating political union with England to
create the united Kingdom of Great Britain.
This union resulted from the Treaty of Union
agreed in 1706 and enacted by the twin Acts
of Union passed by the Parliaments of both
countries, despite widespread protest across
Scotland.
Early History
 Repeated glaciations, which covered the entire
land-mass of modern Scotland, destroyed any
traces of human habitation that may have existed
before the Mesolithic period.
 It is believed that the first post-glacial groups of
hunter-gatherers arrived in Scotland around
12,800 years ago, as the ice sheet retreated after
the last glaciation.
 Groups of settlers began building the first known
permanent houses on Scottish soil around 9,500
years ago, and the first villages around 6,000
years ago.
 The well-preserved village of Skara Brae on the
Mainland of Orkney dates from this period.
 Neolithic habitation, burial and ritual sites are
particularly common and well-preserved in the
Northern Isles and Western Isles, where a lack of
trees led to most structures being built of local
Ancient Scottish Grave Scottish Bronze
Wall
The discovery in Scotland of a four thousand
year old tomb with burial treasures at
Forteviot, near Perth, the capital of a Pictish
Kingdom in the 8th and 9th century's AD, is
unrivalled anywhere in Britain.
It contains the remains of an early Bronze Age
ruler laid out on white quartz pebbles and
birch bark.
It was also discovered for the first time
that early Bronze Age people placed
flowers in their graves.
Scotland may have been part of a Late Bronze
Age maritime trading-networked culture
called the Atlantic Bronze Age that also
included the other Celtic nations, England,
Geography
 The whole of Scotland was covered by ice sheets
during the Pleistocene ice ages and the
landscape is much affected by glaciation. From a
geological perspective the country has three
main sub-divisions.
 The Highlands and Islands lie to the north and
west of the Highland Boundary Fault, which runs
from Arran to Stonehaven.
 This part of Scotland largely comprises ancient
rocks from the Cambrian and Precambrian which
were uplifted during the later Caledonian
Orogeny.
 The Highlands are generally mountainous and the
highest elevations in the British Isles are found
here.
 Scotland has over 790 islands which are divided
into four main groups: Shetland, Orkney, and the
Inner Hebrides and Outer Hebrides. There are
Relief map of
Scotland
Climate
The climate of Scotland is temperate and
oceanic, and tends to be very changeable.
It is warmed by the Gulf Stream from the
Atlantic, and as such has much milder winters
than areas on similar latitudes, for example
Labrador, Canada or Moscow.
However, temperatures are generally lower
than in the rest of the UK, with the coldest
ever UK temperature of −27.2 °C recorded at
Braemar in the Grampian Mountains, on 11
February 1895.
Winter maximums average 6 °C in the
lowlands, with summer maximums averaging
18 °C The highest temperature recorded was
Culture
 Scottish music is a significant aspect of the
nation's culture, with both traditional and modern
influences. A famous traditional Scottish
instrument is the Great Highland Bagpipe, a
wind instrument consisting of three drones and a
melody pipe, which are fed continuously by a
reservoir of air in a bag.
 Scottish literature includes text written in
English, Scottish Gaelic, Scots, French, and Latin.
 Some modern novelists, such as Irvine Welsh (of
Trainspotting fame), write in a distinctly Scottish
English that reflects the harsher realities of
contemporary life.[196] More recently, author J.K.
Rowling has become one of the most popular
authors in the world (and one of the wealthiest)
through her Harry Potter series, which she began
writing from a coffee-shop in Edinburgh.
 As one of the Celtic nations, Scotland and Scottish
culture is represented at interceltic events at
home and over the world.
 Festivals celebrating Celtic culture, such as Festival
Interceltique de Lorient (Brittany), the Pan Celtic
Festival (Ireland), and the National Celtic Festival
(Australia), feature elements of Scottish culture
such as language, music and dance.
 The kilt is a knee-length garment with pleats at
the rear, originating in the traditional dress of
men and boys in the Scottish Highlands of the
16th century. Since the 19th century it has
become associated with the wider culture of
Scotland in general, or with Celtic heritage even
more broadly. It is most often made of woollen
cloth in a tartan pattern.
 Although the kilt is most often worn on formal
occasions and at Highland games and sports
events, it has also been adapted as an item of
fashionable informal male clothing in recent
years, returning to its roots as an everyday
garment.
<- Bagpipe

Kiltman ->
Haggis is a dish containing sheep's pluck'
(heart, liver and lungs), minced with onion,
oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with
stock, and traditionally simmered in the
animal's stomach for approximately three
hours.
The haggis is a traditional Scottish dish
memorialised as the national dish of Scotland
by Robert Burns' poem Address to a Haggis in
1787. Haggis is traditionally served with
"neeps and tatties" (Scots: swede, yellow
turnip and potatoes, boiled and mashed
separately) and a "dram" (i.e. a glass of
Scotch whisky).
The Haggis
The Great Legend
 The Loch Ness Monster is a cryptid that is reputed
to inhabit Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands. The
most frequent speculation is that the creature
represents a line of long-surviving dinasore. It is
similar to other supposed lake monsters in
Scotland and elsewhere, though its description
varies from one account to the next.

 Popular interest and belief in the animal has
fluctuated since it was brought to the world's
attention in 1933. Evidence of its existence is
anecdotal, with minimal and much-disputed
photographic material and sonar readings. The
scientific community regards the Loch Ness
Monster as a modern-day myth, and explains
sightings as a mix of hoaxes and wishful thinking.
Despite this, it remains one of the most famous
examples of the world’s mysteries. The legendary
monster has been affectionately referred to by the
 Said to have started with an account of Saint
Columba, in 565 A.D rescuing a swimmer from a
lake creature.
 From then on stories of such a creature emerged
periodically, but little is actually recorded until
the 20th century.
 It was only after 1933, when a new road was built
along the lake shore and people were first able to
visit the area in large numbers, that reports of
sightings really took off.
 In 1933, The MacKay’s owned a local pub near Loch
Ness, and on April 14th saw an "enormous
animal" in the Loch. They told the man
responsible for controlling salmon fishing in the
Loch, Alex Campbell. Campbell, because of his
job spent a lot of time observing the Loch, and he
saw Nessie a number of times.
 Campbell put it at 30 feet long and described it as
having "a long, tapering neck, about 6 feet long,
and a smallish head with a serpentine look about
it, and a huge hump behind..."
Sport
 Sport is an important element in Scottish culture,
with the country hosting many of its own national
sporting competitions.
 It enjoys independent representation at many
international sporting events including the FIFA
World Cup, the Rugby Union World Cup, the
Rugby League World Cup, the Cricket World Cup
and the Commonwealth Games, but not at the
Olympic Games where Scottish athletes are part
of the Great Britain team.
 Scotland has its own national governing bodies,
such as the Scottish Football Association (the
second oldest national football association
in the world) and the Scottish Rugby Union.
Variations of football have been played in
Scotland for centuries with the earliest reference
dating back to 1424.
 Association football is now the most popular sport
and the Scottish Cup is the world's oldest national
 National Symbols
 The national flag of
Scotland, known as the
Saltire or St. Andrew's
Cross, dates from the 9th
century, and is thus the
oldest national flag still in
use.
 Since 1606 the Saltire has also
formed part of the design of
the Union Flag. There are
numerous other symbols and
symbolic artefacts, both
official and unofficial,
including the thistle, the
nation's floral emblem, 6
April 1320 statement of
political independence the
Declaration of Arbroath, the
textile pattern tartan that
often signifies a particular
Flower of Scotland is popularly held to be the
National Anthem of Scotland, and is played
at events such as football and rugby matches
involving the Scotland national teams.
Other less popular candidates for the National
Anthem of Scotland include Scotland the
Brave, Highland Cathedral, Scots Wha Hae
and A Man's A Man for A' That.

St Andrew's Day, 30 November, is the national
day, although Burns' Night tends to be more
widely observed, particularly outside
Scotland.
