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1/ Next week (26th March 🗓️) is the first ever Geomob Edinburgh, which is reason enough for us to turn this week's focus to Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

🌍🧵👇

Details of @geomob
thegeomob.com/post/mar-26th-20

2/ So first up Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 is in that it's not really clear what exactly it is. Is it a country? A region? A country within a country?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countrie

It's part of the UK 🇬🇧, but has its own legal system:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scots_la

Some day we'll do a UK thread, but be warned it will very, very long. No country (countries?) is/are as odd.

3/ Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 and England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 united in 1707.

The relationship between the "constituent countries" of the UK 🇬🇧 has evolved over time.

Fans of obscure political/geographic crossover references may recall the "West Lothian question" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Lot

in 1999 Scottish Parliament was (re)established. The popular Scottish National Party advocates for independence from the UK, and this culminated in the 2014 independence referendum, with "No" winning 55.3% to 44.7%

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Sco

4/ You may not have recognised the map of Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 in the toot that started this thread.

Traditionally many/most maps of Scotland or the entire UK 🇬🇧 have Shetland - the northernmost islands - in a box to save space.

In 2018 a law was introduced to ban "putting Shetland in a box", in an effort to combat "misconceptions about our islands"

bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-43574

5/ The Shetland boxing controversy lead to delightful "revenge maps" like this where the UK 🇬🇧 is boxed.

Perhaps fitting in that Shetland only joined Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 in the 15th century. Before that the Northern Isles (Shetland and Orkney) were part of the Kingdom of Norway 🇳🇴

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern

6/ Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 fields its own national teams in most sports, but in the Olympics Scottish athletes compete as part of the UK 🇬🇧 team.

The national football team will open Euro 2024 versus hosts Germany 🇩🇪 on June 14th.

Scotland has its own football leagues, which also include Berwick Rangers FC, a team based in Berwick-upon-Tweed which is just south of the border in England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berwick_.

7/ Speaking of the border, many people mistakenly believe famous Hadrian's Wall to be the border between Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 and England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿.

In fact it lies entirely in England, and was built by the Romans, well before Scotland and England existed

The actual border has moved many times over the centuries.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debatabl