The shires were originally established in the Middle Ages for judicial purposes, being territories over which a sheriff had jurisdiction.

Elected county councils were created in 1890 under the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1889, taking most of the functions of the commissioners of supply.

Some of the council areas share names with the historic counties, but in most such cases they have notable differences in their boundaries.

The early Kingdom of Alba was subdivided into smaller territories under the control of various ranks of noble, including mormaers, earls, and thanes.

[2] Malcolm III (reigned 1058 to 1093) appears to have introduced sheriffs as part of a policy of imitating the administrative structures then being used in England by its Norman rulers.

[3] The provinces formed part of the feudal hierarchy of land ownership, but justice was administered by sheriffs, appointed to separately defined shires.

[6] In 1305 Edward I of England, who had deposed John Balliol, issued an ordinance for the government of Scotland.

[4] The remaining shires were formed either by the territorial expansion of the Kingdom of Scotland, or by the subdivision of existing sheriffdoms.

[28][29] Orkney and Shetland having one sheriff but two sets of commissioners of supply led to ambiguity about their status.

The court declined to give such a ruling in abstract terms, as the answer depended on the context; they were one shire for the purposes of the administration of justice, lieutenancy, and parliamentary constituencies, but formed two shires for local government functions.

The word 'county' means an area controlled by a noble called a count in Norman French, or earl in English.

[33][34] Unlike in England, Scotland's shires remained quite distinct territories from its earldoms and other provinces in 1707.

At the accession of George II in 1727, twenty-two sheriffs were hereditary, three were appointed for life and only eight held office at the pleasure of the monarch.

The same act also abolished other hereditary jurisdictions including regality, justiciary and others; these had formed the basis for the authority of the earls and other nobles in their provinces.

[37] The reforms of 1748 therefore saw the effective end of any meaningful function for the provinces, with the shires or counties thereafter being the main administrative divisions of Scotland.

Elected county councils were introduced in 1890 under the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1889, taking most of the functions of the commissioners of supply, which were eventually abolished in 1930.

Firstly, the boundary changes did not affect any parliamentary constituencies, which remained as they were when last reviewed under the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885.

[56] In 1963 the Government published a white paper which proposed a reduction in the number of counties from thirty-four to between ten and fifteen.

[57] A process of consultation between county councils and officials from the Scottish Office was begun to effect the amalgamations.

[58] In 1966 a Royal Commission on Local Government in Scotland, chaired by Lord Wheatley, was appointed.

[60] In 1970 another change in government control was followed by the publication of a white paper in 1971 implementing the commission's reforms in a modified form.

[65] The historic counties of Scotland are included in the Index of Place Names (IPN) published by the Office for National Statistics.

Each "place" included in the IPN is related to the historic county it lies within, as well as to a set of administrative areas.

For counties not named after towns, the Post Office used the form Morayshire, and used Ross-shire for the mainland part of Ross and Cromarty.