What are the regions of Scotland?

They are counties like England right? But what are they? I can’t for some reason find any reliable list of them. We’re trying to get more countries split up on RB so we first need a solid list everyone agrees on.

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Same issue with Wales, there are several types in use. I never got round to implementing either country in the app I mentioned in the main thread but the provisional lists I had were the following, which in my opinion were the “best” and most suitable in the majority of cases - including for RB purposes:

Scotland

The 32 “council areas” as outlined on this Wikipedia page: Subdivisions of Scotland - Wikipedia

  • Glasgow
  • Edinburgh
  • Fife
  • North Lanarkshire
  • South Lanarkshire
  • Aberdeenshire
  • Highland
  • Aberdeen
  • West Lothian
  • Renfrewshire
  • Falkirk
  • Perth and Kinross
  • Dumfries and Galloway
  • Dundee
  • North Ayrshire
  • East Ayrshire
  • Angus
  • Scottish Borders
  • South Ayrshire
  • East Dunbartonshire
  • East Lothian
  • Moray
  • East Renfrewshire
  • Stirling
  • Midlothian
  • West Dunbartonshire
  • Argyll and Bute
  • Inverclyde
  • Clackmannanshire
  • Na h-Eileanan Siar (Western Isles)
  • Shetland Islands
  • Orkney Islands

Wales

The 22 “principal areas” as outlined on this Wikipedia page: Local government in Wales - Wikipedia
English language names are used where available.

  • Blaenau Gwent
  • Bridgend (Pen-y-bont ar Ogwr)
  • Caerphilly (Caerffili)
  • Cardiff (Caerdydd)
  • Carmarthenshire (Sir Gaerfyrddin)
  • Ceredigion
  • Conwy
  • Denbighshire (Sir Ddinbych)
  • Flintshire (Sir y Fflint)
  • Gwynedd
  • Isle of Anglesey (Ynys Môn)
  • Merthyr Tydfil (Merthyr Tudful)
  • Monmouthshire (Sir Fynwy)
  • Neath Port Talbot (Castell-nedd Port Talbot)
  • Newport (Casnewydd)
  • Pembrokeshire (Sir Benfro)
  • Powys
  • Rhondda Cynon Taf
  • Swansea (Abertawe)
  • Torfaen (Tor-faen)
  • Vale of Glamorgan (Bro Morgannwg)
  • Wrexham (Wrecsam)

What do others think of these?

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As I work with English, Welsh and Scottish Local Authorties in my job I was going to go for these.

Now do the Scottish ones that prefer it get added using their Gaelic names?

Whilst we’re on a related topic. I’d forward these as the 6 sub-region of Northern Ireland. I realise there are probably more disserving countries to split ahead of little ol’ Norn Iron, but it would be good to see the whole of the United Kingdom and Ireland split.

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My vote would be for not using the Gaelic names. Given that only 1.1% of Scottish people speak it and it would make it more difficult for the rest of us, it doesn’t really make sense.

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Regions in Germany and Belgium are written in English. Once started, do this for every new country. But, why not add like this:
Bavaria / Bayern

If Norway sometimes end up split in regions here at RB, you have to use Norwegian names. English language names for our regions do not excist!

In Denmark I see it is suggested a name like “Zealand” for Sjælland. I have never heard that name before! Would also like to see “Zealand / Sjælland”

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It causes chaos at work when we have to work out what the Gaelic is to find them on the system.

32 regions for Scotland and 22 for Wales are too many !

I would use the designations used by CAMRA in their Good Beer Guide which gives 13 for Scotland and 6 for Wales. Don’t agree with some of the names they gve though.

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There are 46 in England. Are we going to cull some of them as well?

I guess the difference is there are at least 6 times as many breweries in England than Scotland and Wales combined so to add and extra 54 regions (more than England itself) might be seen as overkill and a lot of work for admins. There will be a lot of regions with breweries counted on one hand.

On the other side of the coin, it would make for some exciting stats and may increase some random brewery sales from completionist users on here!

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I did wonder how many breweries there would be per county in some cases!

We have looked at Scotland before with regard to this and were initially going to go with the historic county list as there are available maps. However this has caused a major problem around Glasgow where up to 3 of the counties converge, Bearded’s list above looks much more convenient, as long as it is backed up with an easily available map. One of the bonuses with Belgium was that the postcodes stuck exactly to the regions, which made it really easy, this doesn’t happen in the UK unfortunately.
I have no problem with the number of regions for Scotland, if anything it adds interest, I don’t like the CAMRA divisions in the GBG. It doesn’t really matter if there are few breweries in certain regions, makes the hunting more fun really, look at Rutland and Isle of Wight in England.
If Scotland is to be next then we are set to go, all Breweries are up to date and most places are set to historic counties. Lets do it.

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Having said this, I believe Netherlands and or Czech Republic should be next personally.

Wales should be split like this

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I will personally be very happy with Scotland and Wales being split in any way and am happy to go with the majority. As a UK resident I’m quite happy with more regions!

However, if people are unhappy with the higher number of counties (and I quite understand this could be unpopular with overseas users) an alternative would be to us the county/region structure that existed 1974/5-1996:

  1. Strathclyde
  2. Dumfries & Galloway
  3. Borders
  4. Lothian
  5. Central
  6. Fife
  7. Borders
  8. Grampian
  9. Highlands
  10. Western Isles
  11. Orkney
  12. Shetland
  1. Gwent
  2. South Glamorgan
  3. Mid Glamorgan
  4. West Glamorgan
  5. Dyfed
  6. Powys
  7. Gwynedd
  8. Clwyd

The numbers of regions split this way seems more in line with other countries, and might be fairer for overseas raters - plus there is still a legal basis (albeit a historic one) for the split.

Surprised that the Scottish contingent haven’t weighted in on this. @cgarvieuk ?

Sorry @minutemat, didn’t see you’d snuck in with the same suggestion for Wales whilst I was typing that!

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im not really bothered about Scotland being split. but no real objection.

Probably the up to date would be best I’m thinking. But really at this point it just comes down to ease and order I think, for @Services to do. Basically we just want to give him a solid list that we mostly agree on. Seems like Netherlands, Denmark and Spain are a little farther along in that sense. I’m happy with anything - amazing we’ve gotten two more already. Anyway, that’s why I’m trying to sort them out in these forum posts so it’s all ready to do as we go down the list.

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I’ve been looking for/forward to Scotland being split into regions for so very long now.

My feeling is that the most up to date “32 council areas” as per LazyPyro may be the most appropriate / easiest to implement. It is quite a lot of areas, but I can see there being a number of problems in trying to use archaic boundaries.

I agree with Fergus not to use Gaelic names. Western Isles is far easier / more useful to us than Na h-Eileanan Siar… Everytime I see that pop up on the Covid numbers breakdown I get confused…

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