The Highlands is a historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Highlands and the Lowlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Scots language replaced Scottish Gaelic throughout most of the Lowlands. The term is also used for the area north and west of the Highland Boundary Fault, although the exact boundaries are not clearly defined, particularly to the east. The Great Glen divides the Grampian Mountains to the southeast from the Northwest Highlands. The Scottish Gaelic name of A' Ghàidhealtachd literally means "the place of the Gaels" and traditionally, from a Gaelic-speaking point of view, includes both the Western Isles and the Highlands.
The Scottish Highlands are renowned for their natural beauty and are a popular subject in art (here depicted by Henry Bates Joel)
Highland Hospitality, painted by John Frederick Lewis, 1832
Stalking in the Highlands by James Giles, 1853
Oban distillery from the pier
Scots is an Anglic language variety in the West Germanic language family, spoken in Scotland and parts of Ulster in the north of Ireland. Most commonly spoken in the Scottish Lowlands, Northern Isles, and northern Ulster, it is sometimes called Lowland Scots to distinguish it from Scottish Gaelic, the Goidelic Celtic language that was historically restricted to most of the Scottish Highlands, the Hebrides, and Galloway after the sixteenth century; or Broad Scots to distinguish it from Scottish Standard English. Modern Scots is a sister language of Modern English, as the two diverged independently from the same source: Early Middle English (1100–1300).
Statue of Robert Burns in Canberra, Australia
Lufe God abufe al and yi nychtbour as yi self ("Love God above all and thy neighbour as thyself"), an example of Early Scots, on John Knox House, Edinburgh
William Wye Smith's The New Testament in Braid Scots