SCOTLAND
ROLLING GREEN HILLS AND FRESH AIR
10 FACTS ABOUT SCOTLAND
1. Scotland was an independent country and never took kindly to invaders but nevertheless it unified with England in 1707 when King James VI of Scotland became King James I of both England and Scotland after the death eased Queen Elizabeth I. Their merger formed the United Kingdom of Great Britain giving rise to factions which to this day opposed the unification.
2. The Flag of Scotland is a white X-shaped cross, which represents the cross of the patron saint of Scotland, Saint Andrew on a blue field. The flag is called the Saint Andrew’s Cross.
3. Scotland includes over 790 islands. These include groups called Orkney, Shetland and the Hebrides.
4. The population of Scotland in 2011 was around 5.3 million.
5. The capital of Scotland is Edinburgh while the largest city is Glasgow. Other major cities include Aberdeen and Dundee
6. Scotland has three officially recognized languages: English, Scots (a relative of English) and Scottish Gaelic (a completely different language).
7. As part of the UK, Scotland’s education system is separate and governed from within Scotland.
8. Scotland emphasizes on a broad education system and was the first country since Sparta in classical Greece to implement a system of general public education.
9. There are 14 Scottish universities some of which are the oldest universities in the world.
10. The University of St Andrews, founded in 1413, is the third oldest university in the UK after Oxford and Cambridge. It welcomed Britain’s first female student in 1862. It is also where the world’s first students’ union came into existence in 1882.