Shires of Scotland

Shires of Scotland Historic Shires
Historic Counties
The counties, districts and burghs as they were in 1947
Status	Historic

The Shires of Scotland (Scottish Gaelic: Siorrachdan na h-Alba; Scots: Scots coonties),^[a] or Counties of Scotland, were historic subdivisions of Scotland.

The shires were originally established in the Middle Ages for judicial purposes, being territories over which a sheriff had jurisdiction. They were distinct from the various older mormaerdoms, earldoms and other territories into which Scotland was also divided, which are collectively termed the provinces of Scotland by modern historians. The provinces gradually lost their functions, whereas the shires gradually gained functions. From the 16th century, the shires served as constituencies, electing shire commissioners to the Parliament of Scotland. From 1667 each shire had commissioners of supply responsible for collecting local taxes; the commissioners of supply were subsequently given various local government functions as well. From 1797, the shires also served as areas for organising the militia, which was the responsibility of a lord-lieutenant.

Following the union of Scotland and England under the Acts of Union 1707, the term 'county' came to be used interchangeably with the older term 'shire'. From 1748 onwards sheriffs ceased to be automatically appointed to a single shire, with progressively larger sheriffdoms created instead, grouping multiple shires under a single sheriff.

Elected county councils were created in 1890 under the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1889, taking most of the functions of the commissioners of supply. The county councils were abolished in 1975, when local government was reorganised. Following another reorganisation in 1996, Scotland is now divided into 32 council areas. Some of the council areas share names with the historic counties, but in most such cases they have notable differences in their boundaries. The historic counties are still used for certain limited functions, serving as registration counties. There are also lieutenancy areas which are based on the historic counties, but with some notable differences.

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