Portal:Scotland/Selected article/Week 26, 2009

Shetland (spelled Zetland until 1970, from Ȝetland; Old Norse Hjaltland; Old Gaelic Innse C[h]ait; Sealtainn) is an archipelago in Scotland, off the northeast coast. The islands lie to the northeast of Orkney, 280 km from the Faroe Islands and form part of the division between the Atlantic Ocean to the west and the North Sea to the east. The total area is approximately 1,466 km² (566 sq mi). Administratively, the area is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland. The islands' administrative centre and only burgh is Lerwick.

The largest island, known as "Mainland," has an area of 967 km² (374 sq mi), making it the third-largest Scottish island and the fifth-largest of the British Isles.

Shetland has been populated since at least 3400 BC.The early people subsisted on cattle-farming and agriculture. During the Bronze Age, around 2000 BC, the climate cooled and the population moved to the coast. During the Iron Age, many stone fortresses were erected, some ruins of which remain today. Around A.D. 297, Roman sources describe a people known as the Picts who ruled much of north Scotland, and Shetland eventually became part of the Pictish kingdom. Shetland's Picts were later conquered by the Vikings