Isle of Skye

The largest and northernmost of the major Inner Hebrides, its peninsulas radiating from a mountainous hub dominated by the Cuillin, whose rocky slopes give some of the most dramatic mountain scenery in Scotland. Occupied since the late Upper Palaeolithic, and in turn by Picts, Gaels, Scandinavian Vikings and the Norse-Gaelic clans of MacLeod and MacDonald; it was under Norwegian suzerainty until the Treaty of Perth in 1266. The Jacobite risings broke the clan system, and the clearances that followed replaced whole communities with sheep. About a third of residents spoke Gaelic in 2001.