It covers about 77 hectares (5⁄16 sq mi), and reaches a height of 384 metres (1,260 ft) at Mullach an Eilein.

Boreray has the Cleitean MacPhàidein, a "cleit village" of three small bothies used regularly during fowling expeditions from Hirta.

[7] As a result of a smallpox outbreak on Hirta in 1727, three men and eight boys were marooned on Stac an Armin off the coast of Boreray until the following May.

[7] It may be an example of an Iron Age wheelhouse and the associated remains of an agricultural field system and two additional possible settlement mounds were discovered in 2011.

[9][10][11] RCAHMS surveyor Ian Parker said: “This new discovery shows that a farming community actually lived on Boreray, perhaps as long ago as the prehistoric period.