Orkney Islands

Traditionally, the economy has relied on agriculture, with beefstock rearing and dairying, fishing, boatbuilding, distilling, knitwear, and crafts. To these have been added servicing the oil industry. The Flotta oil pipeline landfall and tanker terminal in Scapa Flow was opened in 1977. Tourism plays a growing part in the economy.

Mainland is linked to Burray and South Ronaldsay by causeways. These were constructed during World War II to prevent enemy submarines entering the naval base of Scapa Flow. The principal means of access to Orkney is by car ferry to Stromness from Scrabster, near Thurso on the Scottish mainland; it takes two hours. Ferries also run from Aberdeen. There are also inter-island connections. There is an air service between Kirkwall and mainland Scotland.

The islands appear to have been in continuous habitation since the Stone Age. The Neolithic monuments of Maes Howe, Skara Brae, the Ring of Brodgar, and the Stones of Stenness were collectively designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999. In the same year, a Bronze Age underground chamber with 29 well-preserved stone steps was excavated at Minehowe. In addition to the numerous prehistoric remains, parts of a Viking settlement and a medieval monastery have been found. Overrun by the Vikings towards the end of the 8th century, Orkney was under Norwegian and then Danish control until the 15th century. Coexisting with Irish missionaries from the beginning of this time, the Vikings began to be converted to Christianity much later; St Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall was built in the 12th century. In 1472 the islands came under Scottish control (as did the Shetland Islands) through the marriage of James III of Scotland to Princess Margaret of Denmark. The islands were involved in both World Wars, when the sheltered waters of Scapa Flow were used as a naval base. In 1919 the German navy scuttled its ships that had been held there since the end of the war; in 1939 a German U-boat sank the British battleship Royal Oak that was anchored there. Since the late 1970s the pipeline landfall from the Piper and Claymore oilfield complex has been a major source of employment in the Orkneys. A new oil area was opened up north-west of Orkney in the mid-1990s; oil from the field at Fionaven, is brought to the Flotta terminal by shuttle tanker—the terminal handles around 10 per cent of the United Kingdom’s offshore oil production.