Isle of Arran
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Shaped like a kidney bean, Arran (www.arran.net) is the most southerly (and therefore the most accessible) of all the Scottish islands. The Highland-Lowland dividing line passes right through its centre - hence the tourist board's aphorism about it being like "Scotland in miniature" - leaving the northern half sparsely populated, mountainous and bleak, while the lush southern half enjoys a much milder climate. Despite its immense popularity, the tourists, like the population of around 4500 - many of whom are incomers - tend to stick to the southeastern quarter of the island, leaving the west and the north relatively undisturbed.
Although tourism is now by far its most important industry, Arran, at twenty miles in length, is large enough to have a life of its own. While the island's post-1745 history and the Clearances (set in motion by the local lairds, the dukes of Hamilton) are as depressing as elsewhere in the Highlands, in recent years Arran has not suffered from the depopulation which has plagued other, more remote islands. Once a county in its own right (along with Bute), Arran has been left out of the new Argyll and Bute district in the latest county boundary shake-up, and is coupled instead with mainland North Ayrshire, with which it enjoys year-round transport links, but little else.
Transport on Arran is pretty good: daily buses circle the island and link in with the two ferry services: a year-round one from Ardrossan in Ayrshire to Brodick, and a smaller ferry from Claonaig on Kintyre to Lochranza (April to mid-Oct).
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