(Area: 48 square miles)
Britain's smallest county, Clackmannanshire lies between Perthshire and Stirlingshire, bounded by the River Forth, touching also Kinross-shire. "The Wee County" once had a coal industry but is now sheep country. Despite its size Clackmannanshire has somehow retained its individual identity (and even regained its own local government in a time of gigantism).
(Area: 241 square miles)
Dumbartonshire is a small county split into two parts. The main part lies north and west of Glasgow, along the north shore of the Firth of Clyde and stretching northward between Loch Long and Loch Lomond, following north up almost the whole length of the twain lochs. The detached part of Dumbartonshire is to the east, containing Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch.
Dumbartonshire towns cling to the north bank of the Clyde, above which rise mountains.
The Rock of Dumbarton rises sheer above the town of Dumbarton on the Firth of Clyde. This was the seat of the old Kingdom of Strathclyde, the northernmost Welsh kingdom of the Dark Ages. Strathclyde lasted many centuries before it fell under Scottish influence and was eventually conquered by the English and ceded to the King of Scots in the late tenth century.
In contrast is the modern town of Clydebank. Clydebank is an engineering and shipbuilding town, now grown with its own suburbs and joined into the Greater Glasgow conurbation.
Cumbernauld in the east is a New Town, thoroughly modern, but with traces of the late Roman Antonine Wall running to the north of it. In this eastern part of Dumbartonshire the land is level and lush, where it has not been built on. It forms a part of the Clyde-Forth Belt almost joining Glasgow to Edinburgh.
(Area: 504 square miles)
Fife is the land lying along the northern shore of the Firth of Forth, between the Firth and the Tay. Fife is a modest sized shire but claims for itself the title, or nickname "The Kingdom of Fife".
Fife is at its most urban at its southerly pointing corner, at the Forth Bridges, on which the major roads and rail lines converge. Dunfermline, the largest town, is in this area, and the Royal navy's major base and dockyard at Rosyth. Further up the coast in the waist of the shire is Kirkcaldy, an ancient trading port and the home town of the father of modern economics, Adam Smith.
At Fife's eastern edge, as it projects into the North Sea, is St Andrews, a former monastic and archiepiscopal centre. It is also the seat of one of Britain's oldest universities. St Andrews is also the home of golf; the games was invented or here or took its shape here, at the Royal and Ancient.
Fife's southern shore is rocky, but along the north-eastern shore towards St Andrews it becomes a large plain, going into the sea in a long, flat, sandy beach.
(Area: 73 square miles)
Kinross-shire is after neighbouring Clackmannanshire the smallest of the counties.
Kinross-shire lies inland, caught between Perthshire and Fife, with a short boundary also with Clackmannanshire. It consists of a low plain surrounded by hills. At the heart of this little shire is Loch Leven.
(Area: 245 square miles)
Renfrewshire lies on the south bank of the Clyde, stretching from the southern Glasgow suburbs to the coast opposite Cowal.
The main towns of Renfrewshire are in the east of the shire, within Glasgow or close by. The largest town is Paisley, an industrial town west of Glasgow. Renfrew itself lies a few miles northward on the bank of the Clyde and almost contiguous with the Glasgow conurbation.
The M8 and A8 run westward along the Firth of Clyde. The Firth of Clyde is a major commercial and industrial centre, and this coast is lined with shipyards, once the busiest in the Empire. Here are Port Glasgow and Greenock, and at the westnmost the more modest resort and passenger ferry port at Gourock.
The east of Renfrewshire is characterized by urban growth. To the west south of the coastal strip is higher ground which remains largely unspoilt.
(Area: 447 square miles)
Stirlingshire stands across the gateway of the Highlands. The county spreads across the narrow band from the head of the Firth of Forth across the low hills of the Campsie Fells to Loch Lomond and within 4 miles of the Firth of Clyde.
The Campsie Fells rise to 1,896 feet at the highest, a low rolling range which with the Kilsyth, Fintry and Gargunnock Hills covers the bulk of the county.
The Forth marks Stirlingshire's northern boundary, with Perthshire. The boundary runs from the head of Loch Lomond to the Forth and into the Firth, a short way above which is the City of Stirling, the county town.
Stirling stands on a precipitous hill above the River Forth, crowned with an eleventh century castle. Stirling was Scotland's capital or co-capital for centuries. Its importance though is also in its position; in the Middle Ages Stirling Bridge was portrayed as the only link joining the Lowlands to the Highlands, and the geography of the land was not far from it. The castle was the scene of fearsome clashes in the wars which racked the British Isles in the Middle Ages. Striling is a somewhat more peaceful city these days, but it is still the major conduit for road and rail from the Lowlands to the Highlands.
Falkirk, the second town of the shire, is the centre of an urban conglomeration and industrial activity.