From Wikitravel

[edit] Scottish Regions

Removed links to Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen from under the 'Regions' heading because:

• there are no recognised regions of Scotland with those names
• the articles referenced describe the cities of those names, not regions
• the links were in any case duplicated under the 'Cities' heading.

That leaves us with the Orkneys and the Hebrides as the only Scottish regions. I think there are genuine regions on the Scottish mainland, but I'm quite sure they are not Glasgow, etc. My experience of living in Scotland is 15 years back; then I would have probably plumped for 'Strathclyde', 'Lothian', etc. Would this still be a good regional breakdown?. -- chris_j_wood 00:56 May 26 2004

So, one way we've figured this stuff out in the past is with a hierarchical list on the talk page. I think Talk:Switzerland and Talk:Southern California/Hierarchy have some examples. Maybe try and propose an idea here for brainstorming? I have to admit that I know next to nothing about Scotland. --Evan 01:15, 26 May 2004 (EDT)

Ok. My suggestion is below, in heirarchic form. I think we should try and keep this to a single level of regions, as personally I find the rather deep heirarchies currently seen in (eg.) England or London impenitrable to the casual reader.

Scotland has been through several largely contradictory local government reoganisations in the last few decades (a bit like an edit war in slow motion) so I have chosen to more or less completely ignore local government boundaries and go for the regions that I remember locals talking about when I was there, and which I think correspond with cultural and scenic differences.

• Central Belt
  • Edinburgh
  • Glasgow
  • Stirling
• Borders
  • Peebles
• Hebredean Islands
• Highlands
  • Fort William
  • Inverness
  • Oban
  • Perth
• North East Scotland
  • Aberdeen
  • Dundee
  • St Andrews
• Orkney Islands
• Shetland Islands
• South West Scotland
  • Ayr
  • Dumfries
  • Locherbie

The one that might cause controversy here is lumping both Glasgow and Edinburgh into a single 'Central Belt' region, given the historic emnity between the two cities. But from an external viewpoint (and that is surely what wikitravel is about) they are almost twin cities only an hours drive apart.

But hey, I'm only an Englishman who spent two years in Glasgow 15 years ago. Roll on some Scots wikitravellers. -- chris_j_wood 17:15 26 May 2004

I confess I don't understand the principle (or point) of wikitravel's heirarchical decomposition of countries, but from a tourist's perspective the governmental map is fairly useless. As one of the aforementioned Scots wikitravellers, I'd suggest something like:

• Central Belt (Edinburgh, Stirling, Glasgow) - highly urbanised with culture, history, nightlife mixed liberally
• Borders (really the SE) Jed, Melrose, Berwick
• SW (Lanark, Ayr, Troon, Dunfries)
• East coast & Tayside (Fife, St Andrews, Perth, Dundee, Aberdeen)
• West coast (Loch Lomond, Kintyre, Oban, Fort William, Torridon, Ullapool)
• Western Islands (from Islay and Jura to Mull, Skye, Harris, Lewis, and the archipelago of sheep-encrusted hillocks in between)
• Orkney & Shetland
• The highlands (Fort William, the Great Glen, Inverness, Speyside, Aviebore, Dornoch, and the NW highlands)

These are distinct by character (insofar as one can make such clumsy categorisations). It strikes me that if someone were fairly short of time and wanted to see as much of the character of Scotland as possible, they'd be far better picking one of the central belt cities, one of the coasts, and either the islands or the highlands, rather than both Glasgow and Edinburgh, say. -- Finlay McWalter 19:36, 29 Nov 2004 (EST)

[edit] Scotland

Most of this entry is nonsense.

This section -

Towns

   * Ardrossan
   * Brodick
   * Kilwinning
   * Lochranza
   * North Berwick
   * Saltcoats
   * Whiting Bay

Someone from Lanarkshire Council has been editing this, as most of these places are of no merit whatsoever.

The culture section of this entry is diabolical. Irvine Welsh is the only name mentioned? What happened to Walter Scott, R. Louis Setevnson, Muriel Spark, Robert Burns, David Daiches, Edwin Morgan, Sorley Maclean...?

If there are improvements you'd like to make, plunge forward and do it! -Todd VerBeek 20:53, 10 June 2006 (EDT)

[edit] Cities

I've cut the number of cities/towns down to 9 as per Wikitravel:Country article template. The 6 cities obviously should be included, but I'm not 100% sure which 3 towns to include. At the moment I've listed Perth (the one I'm most confident about), Dumfries (as a base for exploring both the South West and Borders) and Lanark (as New Lanark is a major tourist destination) but I'm not Scottish so I may have missed a more obvious destination. If I have either let me know or change the list and I'll upload a new version of the map. --Paul. 11:23, 19 November 2006 (EST)

[edit] Scottish-Gaelic phrasebook?

Although I know Scotland (like Wales) is almost entirely bilingual, should there be a gaelic phrasebook? The language is mostly isolated to the Hebredees and places in the northwest of the highlands; but I'm sure it wouldn't go unappreciated if a tourist to the ares was able to ask questions are speak very basic phrases of the language. Could somebody who speaks Gaelic create a gaelic phrasebook please. Thanks.

I doubt this is necessary. Scotland *is* bilingual, but not in Gaelic and English. The majority languages are English and Scots, but nothing is signed in Scots and almost everyone can switch into 100% english on demand. Whether or not a visitor will understand them is another matter. The gaelic roadsigns are for the tourists, and they are signed in english as well. Maybe one day Gaelic will have recovered enough for it to be spoken widely, here's hoping.

Also of course written Gaelic is notoriously difficult for an english speaker to pronounce. Tìoraidh ;-) 77.72.111.161 05:53, 2 July 2009 (EDT)

[edit] Countries or Home Nations?

I see this article has recently been changed, along with Wales and England, to avoid refering to them as countries because they aren't listed on the List of countries, and calling them the Home Nations instead. I'm torn on this one - I see the logic, but a lot of Scots will object if you tell them Scotland's not a country. I think they probably are countries, countries in union, and so I guess that means they should be added to the list of countries. Any opinions? Andyfarrell 18:26, 18 December 2007 (EST)

I made those changes, subsequent to this and this. I think the "logic" is strong and the "reality" weak, but I have no problem with them being in or out, as long as they are all in or all out. ~ 203.144.143.4 01:45, 19 December 2007 (EST)

[edit] Bank holidays

I've been trying to tidy up the United Kingdom article a bit and I've reformatted the section there on bank holidays, which seemed a bit waffly before. I've given basic details on regional variations, but judging from [1] the situation in Scotland is particularly complicated (not just legally, but in terms of actual practice), so I've said to see this article for more details. I don't feel capable of writing that (I have no personal experience), can anyone else? --Zorn 20:20, 8 July 2009 (EDT)