Scotland divided into 32 subdivisions, known as local authorities, or councils. Glasgow City is the largest subdivision in Scotland in terms of population, with Highland being the largest in terms of area. Limited self-governing power, covering matters such as education, social services and roads and transportation, is devolved from the Scottish Government to each subdivision. "Scotland" comes from "Scoti", the Latin name for the Gaels. Philip Freeman has speculated on the likelihood of a group of raiders adopting a name from an Indo-European root, *"skot", citing the parallel in Greek "skotos" (σκότος), meaning "darkness, gloom". The Late Latin word "Scotia" ("land
Geography of Scotland in the early modern era after the famine of 1595, as prices were relatively stable in the early seventeenth century. Calculations based on Hearth Tax returns for 1691 indicate a population of 1,234,575. This level may have been seriously effected by the famines of the 1690s. The first reliable information available on national population is from the census conducted by the Reverend Alexander Webster in 1755, which showed the inhabitants of Scotland as 1,265,380 persons. 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, the population was evenly spread