Highland (council area)

Highland A' Ghàidhealtachd  (Scottish Gaelic) Hieland  (Scots)
Flag Coat of arms
Coordinates: 57°30′N 5°00′W / 57.500°N 5.000°W / 57.500; -5.000Coordinates: 57°30′N 5°00′W / 57.500°N 5.000°W / 57.500; -5.000
Admin HQ	Inverness
Government
• Body	The Highland Council www.highland.gov.uk (Comhairle na Gaidhealtachd www.gaidhealtachd.gov.uk)
• Control	SNP + LD + Lab (council NOC)
• MPs	Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross: Paul Monaghan Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey: Drew Hendry Ross, Skye and Lochaber: Ian Blackford
• MSPs	Caithness, Sutherland and Ross: Gail Ross Inverness and Nairn: Fergus Ewing Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch: Dave Thompson Highlands and Islands: John Finnie, Rhoda Grant, Mike MacKenzie, Jamie McGrigor, Mary Scanlon, David Stewart and Jean Urquhart
Area
• Total	9,906 sq mi (25,657 km2)
Area rank	Ranked 1st
Population (mid-2015 est.)
• Total	234,100
• Rank	Ranked 7th
• Density	20/sq mi (9/km2)
ONS code	S12000017
ISO 3166 code	GB-HLD

Highland (Scottish Gaelic: A' Ghàidhealtachd; pronounced [kɛːəlˠ̪t̪əxk]) is a council area in the Scottish Highlands and is the largest local government area in the United Kingdom. It shares borders with the council areas of Aberdeenshire, Argyll and Bute, Moray and Perth and Kinross. Their councils, and those of Angus and Stirling, also have areas of the Scottish Highlands within their administrative boundaries. The Highland area covers most of the mainland and inner-Hebridean parts of the historic counties of Inverness-shire and Ross and Cromarty, all of Caithness, Nairnshire and Sutherland and small parts of Argyll and Moray.

According to the 2011 UK census, there are nearly 12,000 Scottish Gaelic speakers in the Highland area.

In 1975, the area was created as a two-tier region, under the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973, with an elected council for the whole region and, in addition, elected councils for each of eight districts, Badenoch and Strathspey, Caithness, Inverness, Lochaber, Nairn, Ross and Cromarty, Skye and Lochalsh and Sutherland. The act also abolished county and burgh councils.

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Wikipedia