2015-08-12
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Population: 5.222.100 (2010)
Capital City: Edinburgh
Major cities: Aberdeen, Dundee, Glasgow
Official language: English. Scottish Gaelic is spoken by 1.4 % of the population.
Scotland comprises approximately 1/3 of the total UK land area.
It has an abundance of natural resources & is well served for energy & water supplies. Hydroelectric power stations, gas & coal-fired stations, nuclear plants combined have considerably more capacity than is needed domestically.
Activities based on Scotland’s natural resources – fishing, agriculture, forestry & tourism – depend directly on a carefully preserved environment & on Scotland’s image of environmental purity.
Scotland was an independent state until 1707. Since then it has been part of the UK, but it retains a distinct culture & distinct education & legal systems & many other specifically Scottish institutions.
In December 1997 legislation on devolution was introduced in the Westminster Parliament & the Scotland Act (1998) passed into law.
Elections to the first Scottish Parliament for almost 300 yy. were held in May 1999, which met for the 1st time in July of that year.
The Scottish Parliament’s 129 members (MSPs) are elected for a fixed four-year term.
Scottish Parliament is known as Holyrood, named so as the building housing it is named after.
The Scottish National Party (SNP) commands an overall majority in parliament.
The lowlands of Scotland was one of the growth areas of the Industrial Revolution.
Scottish participation in the British Empire also allowed the Scottish economy to export its output throughout the world.
The decline in heavy industries such as iron & steel, ship building & coal mining has hurt Scotland severely.
The last deep-coal mine in Scotland was closed in 2002 on the Firth of Forth. Only opencast coal mining continues.
There have been 2 bright spots for the Scottish economy:
1. In the 1980s in the belt between Glasgow & Edinburgh emerged an agglomeration of high tech, capital-intensive industries such as electronics. This development is known as Silicon Glen.
Today the industry employs over 41.000 people. It’s largely foreign owned, with American companies accounting for about a half.
Scottish-based companies have strengths in information systems, defence, electronics, instrumentation & semi-conductors.
Scotland has 20 higher education institutions, which produce skilled manpower for industry, & carry out research in many leading technologies.
Some 46 further education colleges provide a comprehensive range of courses at craft, technician & technologist levels. These educational strengths have contributed to the rapid dev-t of the highly successful Scottish electronics sector.
The heavy industry decline in the latter part of the 20th c. led to a remarkable shift in economy of Scotland towards technology & service sector based economy.
2. The other bright spot is the development of the oil & gas industries in the North Sea which led to the prosperous business of providing supplies for the oil & gas companies. Aberdeen has especially benefited from this dev-t.
Tourism is the only economic base that’s feasible for this area.
Scotland’s principle economic problem is the failure to create sufficient employment. This has been a feature of the Scottish economy for much of the last half c.
This stems from the combination of improving labor productivity & the decline of older industries which were more labor intensive than the knowledge-based, high-technology manufacturing & service industries which replaced them.
Only about ¼ of the land is under cultivation – mainly in cereals.
Barley, wheat & potatoes are grown in eastern parts of Scotland.
Sheep raising is important in the less arable mountainous regions, such as the northwest of Scotland which are used for rough grazing, due to its geographical isolation, poor climate & acidic soils.
