Historic Districts of Scotland

[Morris at Heathfield]

Anyone who has studied the history of Scotland has run into the names of various districts that no longer exist (at least, under the same name) as political entities, e.g. Breadalbane, Atholl, Badenoch, and Lochaber. It doesn't help that the boundaries and names of local governmental entities in Scotland seem to have shifted several times in the past half-century.

So anyway, I was pleased to find a number of maps of historic districts of Scotland on Wikipedia. The problem is, these maps are very low resolution, very rough, the set of maps is incomplete, and there is no master map. Also, they seem to have been uploaded around 2006 and 2007. I think Wikipedia could do with a new map or set of maps in SVG format, but that's not exactly why I'm posting.

The reason I'm posting is that, because I was unable to find a good-quality map of these historic districts of Scotland, I recently took it upon myself to create a master map using Wikipedia's map of Tweeddale as a template:



See here for licensing information.

Most of the district names come from maps on Wikipedia, while some I looked up here. I am not certain about some of the identifications, particularly of the district between Atholl and the Mearns, which I have tentatively identified as "Gowrie" based on this map.

Also note that many of these districts, especially in the Lowlands, have more than one name.

Any corrections or clarifications would be most welcome.

[Chas]

Good effort, Morris.

Good reference material is so often hard, or impossible, to find. We often mention old Scottish place names, but without a map they are almost meaningless.

Could I suggest a possible improvement or addition? Would it be possible to add the cities and major towns? And maybe the famous battle sites as well. Possibly just a dot with a number. All the numbers could be in a list at the bottom, so as not to clutter up the map.

Then it would be a good idea to make this a 'sticky' somewhere.

Thanks

Regards

Chas

[Morris at Heathfield]

I developed this map just to give myself something to refer to whenever I wondered where a particular district was located, and I had to "blow up" a low-resolution map just to fit in the names. I would have to blow it up even more to add in the names of cities, major towns, and battles. I could do that, but at some point it would make the most sense just to create a new map from scratch. The problem is, I don't know my Scottish historical political geography well enough to do that. Not to mention that my GIMP skills are fairly rudimentary.

[LeeAnne]

I suppose it depends how far back you want to go, but none of these areas ever had clearly defined boundaries, hence any map will tend to give an impression of definiteness that never really existed. Clear boundaries only really came with the development of shires in the 12th century. For instance, 'Ayrshire' already existed by 1305 (according to Wikipedia).

[JSFMACLJR]

Is there a reason why Appin isn't included?

[Chas]

Is there a reason why Appin isn't included?

It could be that it is very small:

Appin (An Apainn in Gaelic) is a remote coastal district of the Scottish West Highlands bounded west by Loch Linnhe, south by Loch Creran, east by the districts of Benderloch and Lorne, and north by Loch Leven. It lies north-east to south-west, and measures 14 miles (23 km) in length by 7 miles (11 km) in breadth.

Regards

Chas

[jhockin]

I've had a map ( since the early '70's; price $1.95 CAD/ 25p 5s), printed by John Bartholomew & son Ltd, Duncan Street, Edinburgh EH9 ITA, Scotland, called :
"Bartholomews Clan map, 'Scotland of Old', by Sir Iain Moncreiffe of that ilk..", (etc) - that shows the districts, clan areas, cities, etc. - perhaps this is still printed, or you could search on-line?

[JSFMACLJR]

It could be that it is very small:

Regards

Chas

Good point, Chas!

[Morris at Heathfield]

I limited myself to using the borders already on the map and, to be honest, I have little idea what reference(s) the original artist used to draw the borders, or even what time period(s) the map is supposed to represent. If I don't have to draw any borders, it would probably be a relatively easy job to draw a high-resolution map comparable to the one above, although I would prefer to use a relief map so I would be able to use the physical features for reference.

Names: in addition to minor spelling variations (e.g. Lorn/Lorne, Banff/Bamf, Moray/Murray), some districts have more than one name, each of which is widely different from the other. I will attempt to list those below:

Angus: Forfarshire
Annandale: (part of) Dumfriesshire
Berwickshire: Lauderdale (east Berwickshire), the March
Buchan: (part of) Aberdeenshire
Carrick: (part of) Ayrshire
Clydesdale: Lanarkshire
Cunninghame: (part of) Ayrshire
Galloway: Wigtownshire and Kirkcudbrightshire
Kyle: (part of) Ayrshire
Lennox: Dunbartonshire
Liddesdale: (part of) Dumfriesshire, (part of) Roxburghshire; includes Eskdale
Lothian: Edinburghshire (Midlothian), Haddingtonshire (East Lothian), Linlithgowshire (West Lothian)
Mar: (part of) Aberdeenshire
The Mearns: Kincardineshire
Menteith: includes Clackmannanshire
Moray: Elginshire
Nithsdale: (part of) Dumfriesshire
Teviotdale: Roxburghshire
Tweeddale: (part of) Peeblesshire, (part of) Selkirkshire, or Etterick Forest

Is that clear? I'm not sure what happened to Nairnshire on the map. It seems to have been lost between Inverness and Moray.