Shetland, also called the Shetland Islands, is an archipelago in Scotland lying between Orkney, the Faroe Islands, and Norway. It is the northernmost region of the United Kingdom.
St Kilda is a remote archipelago situated 64 kilometres (40 mi) west-northwest of North Uist in the North Atlantic Ocean. It contains the westernmost islands of the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. The largest island is Hirta, whose sea cliffs are the highest in the United Kingdom; three other islands were also used for grazing and seabird hunting. The islands are administratively a part of the Comhairle nan Eilean Siar local authority area.
Hirta is the largest island in the St Kilda archipelago, on the western edge of Scotland. The names Hiort and Hirta have also been applied to the entire archipelago. Now without a permanent resident population, the island had nearly all of St Kilda's population of about 180 residents in the late 17th century and 112 in 1851. It was abandoned in 1930 when the last 36 remaining inhabitants were evacuated to Lochaline on the mainland.
Foula, located in the Shetland archipelago of Scotland, is one of the United Kingdom's most remote permanently inhabited islands. Owned since the turn of the 20th century by the Holbourn family, the island was the location for the film The Edge of the World (1937). The liner RMS Oceanic was wrecked on the nearby Shaalds of Foula in 1914. The island has a post office.
Papa Stour is one of the Shetland Islands in Scotland, with a population of under fifteen people, some of whom immigrated after an appeal for residents in the 1970s. Located to the west of mainland Shetland and with an area of 828 hectares, Papa Stour is the ninth largest island in Shetland. Erosion of the soft volcanic rocks by the sea has created an extraordinary variety of caves, stacks, arches, blowholes, and cliffs. The island and its surrounding seas harbour diverse populations of wildlife. The west side of the island is a Site of Special Scientific Interest and the seas around the island are a Special Area of Conservation.
Vaila is an island in Shetland, Scotland, lying south of the Westland peninsula of the Shetland Mainland. It has an area of 327 hectares, and is 95 metres (312 ft) at its highest point.
Soay is an uninhabited islet in the St Kilda archipelago, Scotland. The name is from Old Norse Sauðey, meaning "island of sheep". The island is part of the St Kilda World Heritage Site and home to a primitive breed of sheep. Excluding Rockall, it is the westernmost point of the United Kingdom.
The grice was a breed of swine found in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland and in Ireland. It became extinct, surviving the longest in the Shetland Isles, where it disappeared sometime between the middle of the 19th century and the 1930s. It was also known as the Highland, Hebridean or Irish pig.
Stac an Armin, based on the proper Scottish Gaelic spelling, is a sea stack in the St Kilda archipelago. It is 196 metres (643 ft.) tall, qualifying it as a Marilyn. It is the highest sea stack in Scotland and the British Isles.
St Kilda was continuously inhabited for two millennia or more, from the Bronze Age to the 20th century.
The Hebrides were settled early on in the settlement of the British Isles, perhaps as early as the Mesolithic era, around 8500–8250 BC, after the climatic conditions improved enough to sustain human settlement. There are examples of structures possibly dating from up to 3000 BC, the finest example being the standing stones at Callanish, but some archaeologists date the site as Bronze Age. Little is known of the people who settled in the Hebrides but they were likely of the same Celtic stock that had settled in the rest of Scotland. Settlements at Northton, Harris, have both Beaker & Neolithic dwelling houses, the oldest in the Western Isles, attesting to the settlement.
John Sands (1826–1900) of Ormiston was a Scottish freelance journalist and artist who also had an interest in archaeology and folk customs, especially the way of life on Scottish islands. He spent almost a year on St Kilda and lived on several other remote islands.
Haskeir, also known as Great Haskeir is a remote, exposed and uninhabited island in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. It lies 13 kilometres west-northwest of North Uist. 1 km southwest lie the skerries of Haskeir Eagach, made up of a colonnade of five rock stacks, and 40 km (25 mi) northwest is St Kilda.
The Boreray, also known as the Boreray Blackface or Hebridean Blackface, is a breed of sheep originating on the St Kilda archipelago off the west coast of Scotland and surviving as a feral animal on one of the islands, Boreray. The breed was once reared for meat and wool, but is now used mainly for conservation grazing. The Boreray is one of the Northern European short-tailed sheep group of breeds.
The Fair Isle wren is a small passerine bird in the wren family. It is a subspecies of the Eurasian wren endemic to Fair Isle, Shetland, Scotland, an island about halfway between mainland Shetland and Orkney. It was first described by the British ornithologist Kenneth Williamson in 1951.
Boreray is an uninhabited island in the St Kilda archipelago in the North Atlantic.
St Magnus Bay is a large coastal feature in the north-west of Mainland Shetland, Scotland. Roughly circular in shape with a diameter of about 19 kilometres (12 mi), it is open to the North Atlantic Ocean to the west. The indented coastline to the north, south and east between Esha Ness in the north and the Ness of Melby in the south contains numerous bays, firths and voes and there are several islands around the perimeter. The waters of the bay are up to 165 metres (541 ft) deep and may have been the site of a substantial meteor impact.
Williamina McIntosh Barclay MBE was a nurse who was one of the main initiators of the evacuation of the Scottish archipelago St Kilda.
Ewen Gillies, also known as 'California Gillies', was a pioneering adventurer and serial emigrant from the remote Scottish island of Hirta, St. Kilda. During a lifetime punctuated by migration, he settled for periods of time in Australia, New Zealand, California and possibly Canada, but returned home on three separate occasions to live in the small remote community on Hirta, the only inhabited island in the small rocky St. Kilda archipelago, which has been described as Scotland's most remote and isolated island community, located in the Atlantic Ocean over 40 miles west of the Outer Hebrides.
