Typical costume, national drink, bagpipe, landscapes and folklore contributed to forge the strong identity of Scotland, which recognizes itself in the whole world. With its astonishing contrasts, these is a country which seems unreal, buried under the fog or reflected majestueusement in a log.
If the principal part of Scotland makes approximately 400 kilometers with flight of bird of north in the south, its littoral is spread on nearly 10 000 kilometers. It counts moreover 787 large islands, almost all located at broad of the coasts north and west. Topography as a whole extremely mountainous, is intersected with moors of wild heather in north and the west, of forests of pines alternating with excellent pastures in the center, fertile arable lands in the east; to the south the round hills and herbues extend from Lowlands. Picturesque logs and rivers are omnipresent. The five million Scot populate in majority the central part of the country. They cultivate what distinguish them from the English and are savagely attached to the characteristics of each one of their areas: costumes, dialects and practical of Gaelic. More than by what brings closer, it is perhaps by their differences that have it defines best the Scot. They are despite everything immensely proud of their nation and his independent institutions, like education and justice. Austere on the occasion, they will be able to surprise you by their set out again: they adore to practise the autodérision and always honour their tradition with hospitality.

Edinburgh
Edinburgh (Edinburgh), the capital of Scotland, enjoys an undeniable prestige, with its old buildings disseminated in the city and the seat of the new Scottish Parliament, near to the De luxe hotel of Holyroodhouse. It has a whole impressing of historical and artistic curiosities which attracts the visitors of the whole world.

Castle Rock was occupied since the age of bronze (towards 1000 front. J.-C.), which does not have anything astonishing considering its strategic site: the glance carries until Firth of Forth. The castle even shelters the oldest building of the city, the vault Saint Margaret, dating from the XIIE century. The son of Margaret, king David 1st, founded little after the abbey of Holyrood to approximately a mile in the east. The city which developed along the road between the two buildings took the name of “Royal Mile” and was quickly an appreciated residence of the kings, even if Edinburgh became capital of Scotland only under Jacques IV (1488-1513). In 1498, it made build The Palace of Holyroodhouse, the royal residence.

Because of overpopulation, the living conditions were soon painful in the old quasi unhealthy city. The end of the XVIIIE century, the construction of a new district of style géorgien in north allowed easiest to escape from it. However, still today, Edinburgh is known like the city of the extremes as regards the social aspects. It has an important court, is the second money market of Great Britain after London and the seat of the new Scottish Parliament. The leading class consists of bankers and lawyers, and the architectural achievements most ambitious of these last years were intended for financial companies. But in the cities built with the periphery at the following day of the Second World war, the poverty of the city of the past is always perceptible.

Today, Edinburgh is considered before just like a great tourist center. In August, when the International Festival beats its full, double population to pass to 800 000 hearts.

South
The south of Scotland is a happy marriage of splendid landscapes and ancestral residences, castles and abbeys. The majority are alas nothing any more but ruins, because of the wars of border which started at the end of the XIIIE century, involving the construction of many fortresses. The hills of Borders and the jagged peaks of Dumfries and Galloway carried all the weight of the violent one conflict between Scotland and England.

In 1296, Scotland engages in a war of independence against England from which the south of the country will suffer particularly. The patriotic fervour of the Scot then their alliances with France cause tensions with their neighbor of the south which will give place to nearly three centuries of battles. Dryburgh, a splendid abbey of the XIE century, was thus initially burnt by the English in 1322, then in 1544.

The independence in fact of the area of Borders causes other conflicts. Powerful families control it, which into force observe the local laws since the medium of the XIIE century. However, when the kings of Scotland do not fight the English, they carry out raids on the area to bring back it under the central authority.

With the passing of years, of great tragedies of the Scottish history were held in the South. If Robert Bruce beats the English army with Glen Trool in 1307, in 1513, in Flodden, close to Coldstream, the Scot undergo their worst demolished military: the king Jacques IV of Scotland and the thousands of soldiers fall to the combat.

Today, the peaceful countryside which surrounds the boroughs of Borders and the mountainous landscape of Dumfries and Galloway seem to contradict violences of the history. The area is known for its factories of textiles and its literary inheritance, because to sir Walter Scott lived Abbotsford, close to Boswells Saint. But the vestiges of the large abbeys of Borders and the castles as well as the names of the battle fields point out its tumultuous past.

Glasgow
It reigns everywhere in Glasgow a spirit of audacity: in the silhouette of its new buildings, like the titanium buildings or the tower of new Science Centers, in its shops of haute couture and the character of its inhabitants. In the years 1970, it was still an industrial town dying woman and apparently without future, but the things changed well.

The center of Glasgow, on northern bank of Clyde, is inhabited since Antiquity. The Romans were present in the area 2 000 years ago, a religious community existed already with the Life century and the chronicles attest the increasing importance of a commercial town starting from the XIIE century.

If the historic buildings like Provand’ S Lordship, a house of the XVE century, testify of its preindustrial origins, modern Glasgow owes its development with the richness of the British Empire and the industrial revolution.

To the XVIIIE century, the city imports colonies of rum, sugar and tobacco, then it is reconverted into the transformation of cotton to the XIXE century. Glasgow turns then to the shipbuilding and heavy industry; the city then attracts many immigrants from Ireland and stripped areas of Highlands and Scottish islands.

From 1780 to 1880, the population passes from 40 000 to more than 500 000 inhabitants. The city extends and in spite of the economic recession of the inter-war period, it manages to preserve its position of industrial giant until the years 1970.

Since, Glasgow took a new departure: the city was named capital cultural of Europe in 1990 and was indicated in 1999 city of the Architecture and the Design of the United Kingdom. A project of 500 million books is intended to recover the shipyards and the docks to install there residences, trade as well as places of leisures.

The Center
With its picturesque campaigns and its great agglomerations, the center of Scotland is a contrasted area where modern industry côtoie of the old and wild landscapes. A long time, it constituted the zone of contact between Lowlands, english-speaking, and Highlands, gaelic, always perceptible opposition.

The frontier fault of Highlands, result of the geological history of Scotland, crosses the Center since Arran, in south-west, until Stonehaven, on the north-eastern coast, separating Highlands from Lowlands. The area thus offers an alternation of mountainous zones and fields green. During centuries, the fault also represented a crossroads, or rather a border between very different cultures. In north and the west people of language Gaelic, faithful to his chiefs of clan lived, whose way of life started to become marginal at the end of the XVIIIE century when Lowlands, more anglicized, extended their domination.

While industry developed in Lowlands thanks to the exploitation of the coal reserves of Lanarkshire and Lothians, Highlands were depopulated; it finished by being used for the breeding of the sheep or hunting.

As the center of Scotland is very collected, the opposition between Highlands and Lowlands is obvious. Stirling Castle, which dates partly from the XVIE century, is close to the petrochemical factories and the power stations of the high valley of Forth. One very joined pane the peaceful hills of Trossachs and the heights of Arran from Glasgow, the largest town of Scotland, strongly industrialized.

The first iron and steel plant coal-fired was born in 1759 in Carron, not far from Falkirk where, only 13 years earlier, Bonnie Prince Charlie, claiming with the British throne, one of its last military victories had gained.

Perth and Dundee are important commercial crossroads rather close to Highlands of the South, relatively savages. No other area of Scotland presents contrasts if marked.

Highlands and islands
The majority of the symbols of the Scottish identity - clans and tartans, whisky and porridge, bagpipes and heather - are in fact clean in Highlands. They ended up applying to all Scotland whereas, during centuries, Highlanders, of language Gaelic and practising the breeding, had little in common with their neighbors of the south.

The first inhabitants of the “highlands” left in Highlands and the islands of the traces of their presence of which oldest go up with 5000 front. J.-C.: stone circles, round towers and cairns. At the end of the VIE, the Celts, of language Gaelic, arrive from Ireland. Saint Columba establishes a community of monks and introduced Christianity on the island of Iona. The fusion of Christianity and the culture Viking to the VIIIE and IXE centuries is visible in the very beautiful cathedral Saint Magnus, in the Orkneys.

During more than 1 000 years, the Celtic company of Highlands rested on a system of clans based on family bonds and obedience with a chief. But those are systematically dismantled by the English after the unhappy attempt of Bonnie Prince Charlie and the jacobites to seize the British crown in 1746. A more romantic vision of Highlands appears at the beginning of the XIXE century, largely due to sir Walter Scott whose novels and poems describe the majesty and the size of a country considered up to that point as poor wretch and barbarian. The Victoria queen, who adored the castle of Balmoral, amply contributed to the popularity of Scotland and launched the fashion of hunting in Highlands. However, the romanticism hides hard economic realities which pushed generations of farmers with expatrier.

Today still, more half of the inhabitants of Highlands and islands live in communities of less than 1 000 hearts. However, with the exploitation of oil and tourism, come to be added to the traditional activities that are the fishing and the manufacture of the whisky, the population tends to grow.