(Area: 618 square miles)
Caithness lies in the very north eastern corner of Great Britain, bounded only by Sutherland and the sea. It is not a highland county but lies beyond the Highlands. It is the northernmost county of mainland Great Britain. Caithness is largely flat and agricultural but with areas of "flow country": peat land interspersed with lochanns.
There are just two towns of any size; Wick (the county town) and Thurso. Wick, on the Wick River, has a wide harbour looking out onto the North Sea. Thurso, on the River Thurso, is on the north coast. Thurso's port, Scrabster, is the main commercial and passenger port connecting Orkney to Great Britain. Isolated as it is, the county's historical heritage connects it as much with Orkney and the Norse as with Scotland. Most of the place-names of Caithness are Norse in origin.
Caithness contains the traditional northeastern extremity of Great Britain; John O' Groats, as well as the northernmost point; Dunnet Head.
(Area: 370 square miles)
Cromartyshire is unique in having no single body. It is a scattered shire, built from various estates belonging to George Mackenzie, Earl of Cromarty, in 1685 and 1698, on the East Coast, the West Coast and inland within Ross.
The town of Cromarty itself is a royal burgh on the north of the Black Isle on the east coast. On the west coast, on Little Loch Broom, Cromartyshire includes Ullapool and other districts. Various parcels of land inbetween belong to Cromartyshire. Geographically it is easier, and usual, to treat Cromartyshire together with Ross-shire, in which all of its parts are locally situate.
The largest settlement in the county is Ullapool, a scenic nineteenth century fishing town on the west coast and Loch Broom.
(Area: 4,211 square miles)
Inverness-shire is the heart of the Highlands, and the largest county in Britain after Yorkshire. Inverness-shire spreads from the Atlantic to the North Sea. It is bounded to the north by Ross-shire (and Cromartyshire), on its long, sweeping eastern and southern boundary by many counties.
The landward part of Inverness-shire is wild and mountainous throughout to an immoderate degree and characterized by gorgeous scenery, with isolated glens and lochs. The coastline is marked with long, rugged sealochs. Mainland Inverness can be divided into a number of distinct districts. Around the coast are Moidart, Arisaig and Morar in the southwest, Knoydart in the west, Lochaber in the south, Badenoch in the southeast and the Aird in the north. In the mountains are Badenoch, Strathspey (the upper part of the Spey), Rannoch Moor (shared with Perthshire).
Scored through the centre of the shire is the Great Glen, or Glenmore, a deep straight line running southwest-northeast from sea to sea and containing a string of major lochs, from Loch Linnhe to Loch Ness. Loch Ness is the longest, deepest and most famous of all lochs. The lochs of the Great Glen were linked in the nineteenth century by the Caledonian Canal; now little used but remaining surely providing the most spectacular canal jouney in Britain. The line of the Great Glen follows a geological fault that continues into Lough Foyle and Londonderry. Thankfully it has stopped moving.
Inverness-shire also includes all of the Outer Hebrides apart from the Isle of Lewis. (Harris in Inverness-shire is divided from Lewis in Ross-shire by Loch Seaforth, Loch Resort and a hilly land boundary between them.) The shire also includes several islands of the Inner Hebrides, including the Isle of Skye, Rum, Eigg, Muck and Canna and their outlyers. More than a third of Inverness-shire's area belongs to the islands.
There are in Inverness-shire more than fifty Munroes (mountains over 3,000 feet), including Ben Nevis (4,406 feet), the highest mountain in the British Isles, Ben Alder (3,757 feet), Sgurr Alaisdair (3,258 feet) on the isle of Skye, and several of the Cairngorms, a range straddling the boundary with Aberdeenshire and Banffshire.
Inverness is considered the capital of the Highlands. It stands at the mouth of the River Ness (which empties the waters of Loch Ness) as the river enters the Moydart Firth. Inverness, standing at the trysting of the highland roads, is the main mart of the Highlands as it has been for centuries. In more troubled times it was also a garrison town watching the restive clans. Inverness was raised to being a city in 2000.
(Area: 3,089 square miles)
Ross-shire stretches from the North Sea coast to the Atlantic coast, standing between Inverness-shire and Sutherland. It is a severe, mountainous shire dominated by the Northwest Highlands. Physically it is divided into Easter Ross and Wester Ross.
The coast of Wester Ross is deeply indented with craggy sealochs and with scattered islands. Easter Ross has a gentler coast with fertile land, notably on the Black Isle between the Cromarty Firth and the Beauly Firth.
The county town is Dingwall at the head of the Cromarty Firth. Its name is Norse, a memory of the extent of Norwegian power in the north.
Ross-shire also includes the Isle of Lewis. (The Isle of Lewis is divided from the Isle of Harris in Inverness-shire by Loch Seaforth, Loch Resort and a hilly land boundary between them.) Lewis is largely low-lying, the whole middle covered in peat, its only town being Stornaway on the east coast.
Scattered across Ross-shire are enclaves of Cromartyshire.
(Area: 2,028 square miles)
Sutherland, in spite of its name, is one the two northernmost counties in mainland Great Britain. It stretches across the north end of the land from the Atlantic to the North Sea
Although often linked to its smaller neighbour, Caithness, Sutherland is very distinct; it is a Highland County, rough with mountain and moor. Many of its place-names are Norse, showing the influence that was brough to bear on the northern lands, but there is much Gaelic in Sutherland too, in contrast to its neighbour.
The north coast of Sutherland is a mixture of sandy bays and crags. There are two deep sealochs in the northern coast, the Kyle of Tongue and Loch Eriboll. Beyond Loch Durness is the great rock of Cape Wrath, where the coast turns round to head south. This west coast is rocky and rough and sparingly inhabited.
Sutherland's North Sea coast is smoother, running from the Dornoch Firth to a little beyond Helmsdale. The interior of Sutherland is high and bleak. There are loch scattered throughout the hills, and peat lochanns in the low ground. The sealochs are renowned for their fisheries and several of the rivers for gentler angling.