Dumfries and Galloway is one of Scotland’s 32 unitary council areas, occupying the western part of the Southern Uplands in the country’s southwest corner.
The region stretches from the Solway Firth and the Irish Sea in the south to the borders with Ayrshire and Lanarkshire in the north, with Cumbria, England, lying across its southern frontier. Its administrative centre is the town of Dumfries, while Stranraer sits 76 miles west on the North Channel coast. The area was formed in 1996 from three historic shire counties — Dumfriesshire, Kirkcudbrightshire and Wigtownshire — the latter two collectively known as Galloway. Its landscape encompasses moorland, forest, coastal plain and low mountain, making it one of Scotland’s most varied and least densely populated regions. For ceremonial purposes it remains divided into three lieutenancy areas that preserve the outlines of the old counties: Dumfries, Wigtown and the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright.
