Highland (council area)

Highland A' Ghàidhealtachd (Scottish Gaelic) Hieland (Scots)
Coat of arms Council logo
Coordinates: 57°30′N 5°00′W / 57.500°N 5.000°W / 57.500; -5.000
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Country	Scotland
Lieutenancy areas	Inverness, Nairn, Ross and Cromarty, Sutherland, Caithness
Admin HQ	Inverness
Government
• Body	The Highland Council
• Control	SNP + Ind (council NOC)
• MPs	Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross: Jamie Stone Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey: Drew Hendry Ross, Skye and Lochaber: Ian Blackford
• MSPs	Caithness, Sutherland and Ross: Maree Todd Inverness and Nairn: Fergus Ewing Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch: Kate Forbes Highlands and Islands: Ariane Burgess, Emma Roddick, Rhoda Grant, Jamie Halcro Johnston, Edward Mountain, Douglas Ross and Donald Cameron
Area
• Total	9,905 sq mi (25,653 km2)
• Rank	Ranked 1st
Population  (2022)
• Total	235,710
• Rank	Ranked 7th
• Density	24/sq mi (9.2/km2)
ONS code	S12000017
ISO 3166 code	GB-HLD

Highland (Scottish Gaelic: Gàidhealtachd, pronounced [ˈkɛːəl̪ˠt̪əxk];^[a] Scots: Hieland) is a council area in the Scottish Highlands and is the largest local government area in the United Kingdom. It was the 7th most populous council area in Scotland at the 2011 census. It shares borders with the council areas of Aberdeenshire, Argyll and Bute, Moray and Perth and Kinross. Their councils, and those of Angus and Stirling, also have areas of the Scottish Highlands within their administrative boundaries.

The Highland area covers most of the mainland and inner-Hebridean parts of the historic counties of Inverness-shire and Ross and Cromarty, all of Caithness, Nairnshire and Sutherland and small parts of Argyll and Moray. Despite its name, the area does not cover the entire Scottish Highlands.
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