Constituency Boundaries
The Western Isles constituency was created at the same time as the Scottish Parliament, in 1999, with the name and boundaries of an existing Westminster constituency. In 2005, however, the name of the Westminster (House of Commons) constituency was changed to Na h-Eileanan an Iar.
The Holyrood constituency covers Na h-Eileanan Siar (the Western Isles council area).
Geographically, the constituency consists of the Outer Hebridean islands. The major islands include Lewis and Harris, North Uist, Benbecula, South Uist and Barra. Because of the remoteness of the constituency from the rest of Scotland, and the difficulties involved in getting from island to island, there is a significantly smaller electorate than in the mainland Scottish Parliament constituencies.
Read more about this topic: Na H-Eileanan An Iar (Scottish Parliament Constituency)
Famous quotes containing the words constituency and/or boundaries:
“But also the constituency determines the vote of the representative. He is not only representative, but participant. Like can only be known by like. The reason why he knows about them is, that he is of them; he has just come out of nature, or from being a part of the thing.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Not too many years ago, a child’s experience was limited by how far he or she could ride a bicycle or by the physical boundaries that parents set. Today ... the real boundaries of a child’s life are set more by the number of available cable channels and videotapes, by the simulated reality of videogames, by the number of megabytes of memory in the home computer. Now kids can go anywhere, as long as they stay inside the electronic bubble.”
—Richard Louv (20th century)