Geography
The phrase "Northern Isles" generally refers to the main islands of the Orkney and Shetland archipelagos. Stroma, which lies between mainland Scotland and Orkney is part of Caithness, and so falls under Highland council area for local government purposes, not Orkney. It is however clearly one of the "northern isles" of Scotland. Fair Isle and Foula are outliers of Shetland, but would normally be considered as part of Shetland and thus the Northern Isles. Similarly, Sule Skerry and Sule Stack although distant from the main group are part of Orkney and technically amongst the Northern Isles. However the other small islands that lie off the north coast of Scotland are in Highland and thus not usually considered to be part of the Northern Isles.
Orkney is situated 16 kilometres (10 mi) north of the coast of mainland Scotland, from which it is separated by the waters of the Pentland Firth. The largest island, known as the "Mainland" has an area of 523.25 square kilometres (202.03 sq mi) making it the sixth largest Scottish island. The total population in 2001 was 19,245 and the largest town is Kirkwall. Shetland is around 170 kilometres (110 mi) north of mainland Scotland, covers an area of 1,468 square kilometres (567 sq mi) and has a coastline 2,702 kilometres (1,679 mi) long. Lerwick, the capital and largest settlement, has a population of around 7,500 and about half of the archipelago's total population of 22,000 people live within 16 kilometres (10 mi) of the town. Orkney has 20 inhabited islands and Shetland a total of 16.
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