Scotland is a constituent nation of the United Kingdom.
We can find the word Scotland in different contexts . It is usual to find it written with a capital letter ( Scotland ), referring to a European country .
However, scotland can also appear as a common noun . In this case, the concept is used in architecture to refer to a type of molding .
Scotland, member of the United Kingdom
Generally, when talking about Scotland, one is naming a constituent or constitutive nation of the United Kingdom . It is not an independent country, but is part of a unitary State (the aforementioned United Kingdom ) along with Northern Ireland , England and Wales .
The United Kingdom is a parliamentary monarchy with Queen Elizabeth II as head of state. However, Scotland also has a national devolved administration based in Edinburgh . This city is its capital , although the most populated town is Glasgow .
Part of Great Britain
Scotland is one of the nations that develops on the island of Great Britain . Its territory occupies around a third of the island's surface; The rest is shared between England and Wales .
Great Britain is located in the Atlantic Ocean , off the northwest coast of continental Europe. Specifically referring to Scotland , it has an area of 78,722 square kilometers , with about five and a half million inhabitants.
Edinburgh is the capital of Scotland.
Scottish independence
It is important to keep in mind that Scotland , in a historical period, was an independent country. Originally, its lands were occupied by the ancient Britons, the Angles, the Scots, the Picts and, since the 9th century , the Vikings .
These populations were united in 843 , giving birth to the Kingdom of Scotland . This State existed until 1707 , when Scotland and England signed an Act of Union and the Kingdom of Great Britain was created. In 1800 , with the incorporation of the Kingdom of Ireland , the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland emerged.
In the 19th century itself, the Scottish independence movement began to gain strength. In 2014 , however, a referendum was held on the possible independence of Scotland and the option of remaining in the United Kingdom was imposed.
Other administrative entity
In Canada , there is a province called Nova Scotia . This federal entity that is located in the east of the North American country has an area of 55,284 square kilometers and Halifax as its capital.
Nova Scotia belongs to the Maritime Provinces region . Fishing, in this framework, is one of its main economic drivers, while Halifax is a port of international importance.
Scotland in architecture
In the field of architecture , a scotia is a concave-shaped molding . The protruding sector of a profile that enables reinforcement or functions as ornamentation of a work is called molding, in turn.
The scotias are made up of a pair of arches that have different circumferences. In their lower area, in this way, they are wider. The name of these moldings comes from the Latin word scotĭa , in turn derived from the Greek skotía which comes from skótos : "darkness" . This is linked to the shadows generated by the Scots.