Tierras Altas de Escocia

"Las Tierras Altas de Escocia (en inglés: Highlands o Scottish Highlands) es una región montañosa del norte de Escocia. Es un área con baja densidad de población y con un relieve muy variado. Tiene una superficie de 25 784 km², que en términos de extensión es similar a la de Cerdeña. El principal centro administrativo es Inverness. Respecto a la cultura, su rasgo más distintivo es la influencia celta, incluyendo el mantenimiento del gaélico escocés como lengua materna de una parte de la población, y un mayor predominio de la actividad agrícola y ganadera comparado con el resto del país. Durante los siglos XVIII y XIX miles de personas fueron desalojadas y forzadas a emigrar al sur o a América y Australia. Esta época es conocida como las clearances y se produjo cuando el sistema feudal de clanes entró en crisis. Está dividida en varios concejos unitarios: el denominado Highland solamente ocupa un 40 % (aproximadamente) de la región genéricamente denominada Highlands. El resto del territorio está repartido entre los concejos de Aberdeenshire, Angus, Argyll y Bute, Moray, Perth and Kinross y Stirling."

"The Scottish Highlands (Scots: the Hielands; Scottish Gaelic: A' Ghàidhealtachd, "the place of the Gaels") 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 one seventh of Scotland's as a whole, comparable with that of Bolivia, Chad and Russia. The Highland Council is the administrative body for much of the Highlands, with its administrative centre at Inverness. However, the Highlands also includes parts of the council areas of Aberdeenshire, Angus, Argyll and Bute, Moray, Perth and Kinross, and Stirling. Although the Isle of Arran administratively belongs to North Ayrshire, its northern part is generally regarded as part of the Highlands. The Scottish highlands is the only region in the UK to have the Taiga biome as it features concentrated populations of Scots pine."