Scotland is unique in having as a record of landownership not only the 1872 Return, but those of the great chroniclers John MacEwen and Andy Wightman. This has given a degree of continuity to the evolving picture which no other part of the United Kingdom can match. In practice, what the Scottish pages here do is unite the 1872 record with that of Andy Wightman, which itself includes that of John MacEwen. In so doing the author hopes that readers will begin to understand fully the gap in the historic record, and its potential economic importance, created by the disappearance of the 1872 Return. The 34 counties of 1872 Scotland were reorganised in 1975 into nine regions and 53 district councils. In 1996 this system was again reorganised into 32 'unitary authorities', including 3 island councils and 29 mainland administrative areas. It was interesting to note the survival within the new system of much of the original county structure, meaning that there were available agricultural, housing and population statistics for most of the old counties. Where this was not the case, the old counties, such as Caithness, Ross & Cromarty and Sutherland, are left to stand on their own as part of the historic record.

Institutional landowners

Very few institutional landowners of any consequence appeared in the 1872 Return. While it is possible that there were very few institutional landowners (the Church of Scotland, for example, did not have landholdings on nearly the scale of the Church of England), another explanation is that the compilers of the Return failed to report as they should have.

Aberdeenshire Angus Argyllshire Ayrshire Banffshire Berwickshire Bute Caithness Clackmannanshire Cromarty Dumfriesshire Dunbartonshire

East Lothian Fife Inverness-shire Kincardineshire Kinross-shire Kirkcudbrightshire Lanarkshire Midlothian Moray Nairnshire Orkney Peeblesshire

Perthshire Renfrewshire Ross-shire Roxburghshire Selkirkshire Shetland Stirlingshire Sutherland West Lothian Wigtownshire