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The geography of Scotland in the early modern era covers all aspects of the land in Scotland, including physical and human, between the sixteenth century and the beginnings of the Agricultural Revolution and industrialisation in the eighteenth century. The defining factor in the geography of Scotland is the distinction between the Highlands and Islands in the north and west and the Lowlands in the south and east. The Highlands were subdivided by the Great Glen and the Lowlands into the fertile Central Lowlands and the Southern Uplands. The Uplands and Highlands had a relatively short growing season, exacerbated by the Little Ice Age, which peaked towards the end of the seventeenth century. A network of roads developed in the Lowlands in this period. Drover's roads, between the Highlands and north-east England, had become established by the end of the seventeenth century and a series of military roads were built and maintained as a response to the Jacobite Risings in the eighteenth century. At the beginning of the period, most farming was based on the Lowland fermtoun or Highland baile, but a system of land ownership based on large estates emerged. This was the beginning of a process that would create a landscape of rectangular fields, carefully located farm complexes with interconnecting roads. There was an attempt improve agriculture, resulting in new crops, techniques and enclosures began to displace the run rig system and free pasture. There are almost no reliable sources with which to track the population of Scotland before the late seventeenth century. It probably grew for most of the period, reaching 1,234,575 by 1691 and 1,265,380 by the first census in 1751. Compared with the situation after the redistribution of population as a result of the clearances and the industrial revolution that began in the eighteenth century, these numbers were more evenly spread over the kingdom, with roughly half north of the River Tay. Most were housed in small hamlets and isolated dwellings. The Little Ice Age saw the abandonment of marginal land, but new settlements were created as a result of the opening up of hunting reserves like Ettrick Forest and less desirable low-lying land was also settled. As the population expanded, some settlements were sub-divided to create new hamlets. Perhaps ten per cent of the population lived in one of the many burghs that had grown up in the later Medieval period, mainly in the east and south of the country. By 1750, with its suburbs, Edinburgh had reached a population of 57,000. By the early modern era Gaelic had been in geographical decline for three centuries and had begun to be a second class language, confined to the Highlands and Islands. It was gradually being replaced by Middle Scots. From the mid sixteenth century, written Scots was increasingly influenced by the developing Standard English of Southern England, which came to dominate elite discourse. After the Union in 1707 the use of Gaelic and Scots were discouraged by many in authority and education, as was the notion of Scottishness itself. The extent and borders of the kingdom had been fixed in their modern form by the beginning of the sixteenth century, with the exception of the debatable lands, settled by a French led commission in 1552. The accession of James VI to the English throne made the borders less significant in military terms, becoming, in his phrase the "middle shires" of Great Britain, but it remained a jurisdictional and tariff boundary until the Act of Union in 1707. Edinburgh had emerged as the capital in the fifteenth century and continued to be a major administrative centre. From the seventeenth century the responsibilities of shires expanded from judicial functions into wider local administration. The parish also became an important unit of local government. By the mid-seventeenth century this system had largely been rolled out across the Lowlands, but was limited in the Highlands. There was much greater awareness of geography and political boundaries in this period and Scotland was extensively mapped for the first time. ==Physical== (詳細はHighlands and Islands in the north and west and the Lowlands in the south and east. The Highlands are further divided into the Northwest Highlands and the Grampian Mountains by the fault line of the Great Glen. The Lowlands are divided into the fertile belt of the Central Lowlands and the higher terrain of the Southern Uplands, which included the Cheviot hills, over which, as now, the border with England runs.〔R. Mitchison, ''A History of Scotland'' (London: Routledge, 3rd edn., 2002), ISBN 0-415-27880-5, p. 2.〕 The Central Lowland belt averages about 50 miles in width〔''World and Its Peoples'' (London: Marshall Cavendish), ISBN 0-7614-7883-3, p. 13.〕 and, because it contains most of the good quality agricultural land and has easier communications, could support most of the urbanisation and elements of conventional government.〔Wormald, ''Court, Kirk, and Community'', pp. 39–40.〕 However, the Southern Uplands, and particularly the Highlands, were economically less productive and much more difficult to govern.〔A. G. Ogilvie, ''Great Britain: Essays in Regional Geography'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1952), p. 421.〕 The Uplands and Highlands had a relatively short growing season and, in the extreme case of the upper Grampians, this was an ice free season of four months or less and for much of the Highlands and Uplands of seven months or less. The early modern era also saw the impact of the Little Ice Age, of worldwide colder and wetter weather, which peaked towards the end of the seventeenth century.〔I. D. White, "Rural Settlement 1500–1770", in M. Lynch, ed., ''Oxford Companion to Scottish History'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), ISBN 0-19-969305-6, pp. 542–3.〕 In 1564 there were thirty-three days of continual frost, and rivers and lochs froze.〔J. E. A. Dawson, ''Scotland Re-Formed, 1488–1587'' (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007), ISBN 0-7486-1455-9, pp. 8–11.〕 The 1690s marked its lowest point, leading to the Seven ill years of famine.〔 Most roads in the Lowlands were maintained by justices from a monetary levy on landholders and work levy on tenants. The development of national grain prices indicates the network had improved considerably by the early eighteenth century.〔 By the end of the seventeenth century, the drover's roads, stretching down from the Highlands through south-west Scotland to north-east England and used for the transport of Highland Cattle for the English meat market, had become firmly established.〔R. A. Houston, ''Scottish Literacy and the Scottish Identity: Illiteracy and Society in Scotland and Northern England, 1600–1800'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), ISBN 0-521-89088-8, p. 16.〕 In the Highlands and Galloway in the early eighteenth century, a series of military roads were built and maintained by the central government, with the aim of facilitating the movement of troops in the event of rebellion.〔W. Taylor, ''The Military Roads in Scotland'' (1976, Dundurn, 1996), ISBN 1-899863-08-7, p. 13.〕 At the beginning of the period, most farming was based on the Lowland fermtoun or Highland baile, settlements of a handful of families that jointly farmed an area notionally suitable for two or three plough teams, allocated in run rigs, of "runs" (furrows) and "rigs" (ridges), to tenant farmers. They usually ran downhill so that they included both wet and dry land, helping to offset the problems of extreme weather conditions.〔Wormald, ''Court, Kirk, and Community'', pp. 41–55.〕 In this era, a system of land ownership based on large estates emerged as the dominant form as Scottish society was largely divided between a few large estate holders and a large number of workers. This had a major impact on the landscape as feudal systems of ownership were abandoned and land holdings reorganised. This process also facilitated the Scottish Agricultural Revolution that further changed the Scottish landscape from the first half of the eighteenth century.〔I. White, "The emergence of the new estate structure" in M. L. Parry and T. R. Slater, eds, ''The Making of the Scottish Countryside'' (London: Taylor & Francis, 1980), ISBN 0-85664-646-6, p. 117.〕 This was the beginning of a process that would create a landscape of rectangular fields, carefully located farm complexes with interconnecting roads.〔J. B. Caird, "The reshaped agricultural landscape" in M. L. Parry and T. R. Slater, eds, ''The Making of the Scottish Countryside'' (London: Taylor & Francis, 1980), ISBN 0-85664-646-6, p. 203.〕 Increasing contacts with England after the Union of 1707 led to a conscious attempt to improve agriculture among the gentry and nobility. The Society of Improvers was founded in 1723, including in its 300 members dukes, earls, lairds and landlords.〔J. D. Mackie, B. Lenman and G. Parker, ''A History of Scotland'' (London: Penguin, 1991), ISBN 0-14-013649-5, pp. 288–91.〕 Haymaking was introduced along with the English plough and foreign grasses, the sowing of rye grass and clover. Turnips and cabbages were introduced, lands enclosed and marshes drained, lime was put down, roads built and woods planted. Drilling and sowing and crop rotation were introduced. The introduction of the potato to Scotland in 1739 greatly improved the diet of the peasantry. Enclosures began to displace the run rig system and free pasture.〔 New farm buildings, often based on designs in patterns books, replaced the fermtoun and regional diversity was replaced with a standardisation of building forms. Smaller farms retained the linear outline of the longhouse, with dwelling house, barn and byre in a row, but in larger farms a three- or four-sided layout became common, separating the dwelling house from barns and servants quarters.〔A. Fenton, "Housing: rural lowlands, before and after 1770s", in M. Lynch, ed., ''Oxford Companion to Scottish History'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), ISBN 0-19-969305-6, pp. 321–3.〕 There was increasing regional specialisation. The Lothians became a major centre of grain, Ayrshire of cattle breading and the Borders of sheep. However, although some estate holders improved the quality of life of their displaced workers, enclosures led to unemployment and forced migrations to the burghs or abroad.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Geography of Scotland in the early modern era」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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