The Highland Towns
The Highland council area ('Sgìre Comhairle na Gà idhealtachd'[1] in Gaelic) is a local government area in the Scottish Highlands and the largest local government area in Scotland, and in the United Kingdom as a whole. It shares borders with the council areas of Moray, Aberdeenshire, Perth and Kinross, and Argyll and Bute. Their councils, and those of Angus and Stirling, also have areas of the Scottish Highlands within their administrative boundaries. The Highland area covers most of the mainland and inner-Hebridean parts of the former counties of Inverness-shire and Ross and Cromarty, all of Sutherland, Caithness and Nairnshire, and small parts of Argyll and Moray.
The area was created as a two-tier region in 1975, under the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973, with an elected council for the whole region and, in addition, elected councils for each of eight districts, Badenoch and Strathspey, Caithness, Inverness, Lochaber, Nairn, Ross and Cromarty, Skye and Lochalsh and Sutherland. The act also abolished county and burgh councils. In 1996, under the Local Government etc (Scotland) Act 1994, the Highland Regional Council and the district councils were wound up and their functions were transferred to a new Highland Council. The Highland Council adopted the districts as management areas and created area committees to represent them. However, the boundaries of committee areas are now out of alignment with those of management areas as a result of changes to ward boundaries in 1999. Also, ward boundaries are changing again this year, 2007, and the management areas and related committees are to be abolished in favour of three new corporate management areas, Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, Inverness, Nairn and Badenoch and Strathspey and Ross, Skye and Lochaber. The names of these areas are also names of constituencies, but boundaries are different.
The Highland Council headquarters is located in Inverness with most previous district council offices retained as outstations.