The Isle of Skye is the largest and most northerly major island in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland, its peninsulas radiating from a mountainous core dominated by the Cuillin range, whose rocky slopes form some of the most dramatic mountain scenery in Britain.
Occupied since the late Upper Palaeolithic, Skye has been shaped by Celtic tribes, Scandinavian Vikings and Norse-Gaelic clans — most notably the MacLeods and MacDonalds. Norwegian control ended with the 1266 Treaty of Perth. The 18th-century Jacobite risings fractured the clan system, and subsequent clearances replaced communities with sheep farms, forcing emigration and collapsing the population from over 20,000 in the early 19th century to under 9,000 by the late 20th. Numbers have since begun to recover; around a third of residents spoke Gaelic in 2001, a declining but culturally vital thread. Connected to the mainland by the Skye Bridge since 1995, the island supports tourism, agriculture, fishing and forestry. Its mild, wet, windy climate sustains golden eagles, red deer, Atlantic salmon and heather moorland, while its sea bed harbours nationally important invertebrate populations. The harbour town of Portree serves as its capital.
