Scotland (Scots: Scotland; Scottish Gaelic: Alba [ˈal̪ˠapə] (listen)) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, Scotland is the second-largest country in the United Kingdom, and accounted for 8.3% of the population in 2012. Scotland's only land border is a 96-mile (154-kilometre) border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, the North Sea to the northeast and east, and the Irish Sea to the south. Scotland is divided into 32 administrative subdivisions and contains more than 790 islands, principally in the archipelagos of the Hebrides and the Northern Isles. Most of the population, including the capital Edinburgh, is concentrated in the Central Belt—the plain between the Scottish Highlands and the Southern Uplands—in the Scottish Lowlands.
The Kingdom of Scotland emerged in the 9th century, from the merging of the Gaelic Kingdom of Dál Riata and the Kingdom of the Picts, and continued to exist as an independent sovereign state until 1707. In 1603, James VI inherited England and Ireland, forming a personal union of the three kingdoms. Scotland subsequently entered into a political union with the Kingdom of England on 1 May 1707 to create the new Kingdom of Great Britain, with the Parliament of Scotland subsumed into the Parliament of Great Britain. In 1999, a Scottish Parliament was re-established, in the form of a devolved unicameral legislature comprising 129 members, having authority over many areas of domestic policy. The head of the Scottish Government is the first minister. Scotland is represented in the United Kingdom Parliament by 59 members of parliament (MPs). Scotland is a member of the British–Irish Council, the British–Irish Parliamentary Assembly and the Heads of Government Council. Within Scotland, the monarchy has continued to use various styles, titles and other royal symbols of statehood specific to the pre-union Kingdom of Scotland. The legal system within Scotland has also remained separate from those of England and Wales and Northern Ireland; Scotland constitutes a distinct jurisdiction in both public and private law. The continued existence of legal, educational, religious and other institutions distinct from those in the remainder of the UK have all contributed to the continuation of Scottish culture and national identity since the 1707 incorporating union with England.
