The northern Highlands average about 1,500 feet or 450m above sea level, and are mostly heather covered rocks where little can be commercially grown. In the little valleys between the hills a few sheep are pastured. Much of the country was used for hunting or shooting preserves, and is a region where the red deer cab still be stalked and the grouse shot.
The Lowlands form fairly good farming country, where wheat, oats barley, etc., are grown, and where considerable dairying business is carried on. The Scottish people are good farmers and know how to make economical use of their land. In few parts of Europe has farming improved so rapidly in the last century and a half as in the Lowlands of Scotland.
The southern Uplands are less fertile, and, tough various crops can be grown, sheep raising is the chief occupation in this part of the country.
Isle of Seil (2001©Alex Mcrobbie)
The coast-line of Scotland is very irregular, the western fringe of "firths" (fiords) and peninsulas and islands. The Orkney and Shetland Islands, to the north, and the Hebrides or Western Isles are parts of Scotland. The greater portion of mainland Scotland is mountainous. The rugged Grampian Mountains (average height 2,000 to 3,000 feet or 600m to 900m) separate the Highlands from the Lowlands and have at their western extremity Ben Nevis ("ben" means "mount"), Scotland's highest peak (4,406 feet or 1,343m). Southwards are lesser peaks and groups, of which Ben Lomond (3,129 feet or 954m), although not the highest is the most famous. The Cheviot Hills (highest peak, 2,658 feet or 810m) lie on Scotland's southern border.
Scotland is dotted with numerous lakes, of which Loch Lomond is the largest and most famous in story. Loch Ness and Loch Lochy, with their connecting waters, were joined in 1803 by canals with locks, so as to make a continuous waterway (the Caledonian Canal) 62 miles long across northern Scotland, from the Moray Firth, an arm of the North Sea, to the Firth of Lorne, which opens into the Atlantic. Vessels of up to around 600 tonnes can pass through the canal and it is a favourite route for tourists and pleasure boats in the summer months.
Scotland land area, including its 186 islands, is around 30,405 square miles.