Scotland Guide
Orkney and Shetland
Orkney
Just a short step from John O'Groats, Orkney is a unique and fiercely independent archipelago. For an Orcadian, the "Mainland" invariably means the largest island in Orkney rather than the rest of Scotland, and throughout their history they've been linked to lands much further afield, principally Scandinavia.
Orkney Mainland has two chief settlements: the old port of Stromness, an attractive old fishing town on the far southwestern shore, and the central capital of Kirkwall, which stands at the dividing point between East and West Mainland. The whole of Mainland is relatively heavily populated and farmed throughout, and is joined by causeways to a string of southern islands, the largest of which is South Ronaldsay. The island of Hoy, the second largest in the archipelago, to the south of Mainland, presents a superbly dramatic landscape, with some of the highest sea cliffs in the country. Hoy, however, is atypical: Orkney's smaller, much quieter northern islands are low-lying, elemental but fertile outcrops of rock and sand, scattered across the ocean.