The Scottish Highlands is a historic region of Scotland encompassing the mountainous terrain north and west of the Highland Boundary Fault, divided by the Great Glen into the Grampian Mountains to the southeast and the Northwest Highlands to the northwest.
The region takes its Scottish Gaelic name, a’ Ghàidhealtachd, meaning “the place of the Gaels”, from its cultural identity as the mainland stronghold of Hebridean Gaelic speakers. Originally inhabited by the Caledonians and Picts, the Highlands diverged culturally from the Lowlands during the Late Middle Ages. The area is now one of Europe’s most sparsely populated regions, with a density of 9.1 people per square kilometre—less than one-seventh of Scotland’s overall figure. From around 1841, emigration to Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand, alongside migration to industrial cities, reversed earlier population growth. The Highlands contain Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in the British Isles, and remain the most mountainous part of the United Kingdom. The region is also the only part of the British Isles supporting taiga biome, characterised by concentrations of Scots pine forest known as Caledonian Forest.
