Geography of Scotland more rugged Highland region contains the majority of Scotland's mountainous terrain, including the highest peak, Ben Nevis. Lowland areas, in the southern part of Scotland, are flatter and home to most of the population, especially the narrow waist of land between the Firth of Clyde and the Firth of Forth known as the Central Belt. Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland, although Edinburgh is the capital and political centre of the country. While the Lowlands are less elevated, upland and mountainous terrain is located across the Southern Uplands. An abundance of natural resources such as coal, iron and zinc
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