Whalswick Shetland Sheepdog Kennel

The Shetland Islands

Shetland is an archipelago of over one hundred islands. Despite being a group of islands it is always referred to as Shetland, or the Shetland Isles, never the Shetlands.

About the Shetland Islands

Although part of Norway for over 500 years, and still proud of its Norse traditions, Shetland is part of the United Kingdom and zoogeographically Shetland is the northernmost extension of the British Isles.

At their closest, Shetland’s nearest neighbours are the archipelago of Orkney, 70 km south-west (ignoring Fair Isle halfway in between which is politically, culturally and zoogeographically part of Shetland), Mainland Scotland 140 km south-west, Norway 275 km to the east and the Faeroer Islands 300 km to the north-east. However, parts of Shetland are nearer to Norway than they are to Mainland Scotland. The islands range in size from Mainland, which accounts for over half the land area, to hundreds of tiny uninhabited stacks and holms. There are currently 14 inhabited islands. Four are connected to Mainland by road bridges, namely East Burra, West Burra, Trondra and Muckle Roe, while a bridge also connects the two islands of Out Skerries. Vaila and Noss are both seasonally inhabited. South Havra and Uyea are the only other islands to have been inhabited within the last century.

The islands group is relatively long and narrow and the coastline is highly indented (the total length estimated to be 1450 kilometres), while nowhere in Shetland is more than 6 kilometres from the sea. Petta Water, south of Voe, is generally accredited with holding the distinction of being the furthest point from the sea. The western coastline is particularly indented and provides a wide range of nesting and feeding areas for birds - seacliffs, offshore stacks and skerries, holms, small islands, deep geos, extensive voes or inlets, rocky shores, shingle shores and sandy beaches. The highest cliffs in Britain are found in Shetland, on Foula where they rise 1220 feet above the sea.

The climate is relatively mild due to the influence of the North Atlantic Drift sea current which is an extension of the Gulf Stream, and the average rainfall is about the same as Devon. During summer there are almost 24 hours of daylight and it is possible to read by natural light at midnight, a time Shetlanders call the 'Simmer Dim'.

Mainland holds the majority of the human population, followed by Yell, Unst, Whalsay, Bressay and Fetlar, although several other islands also have small communities. Travel between the islands is facilitated by several roll-on/roll-off car ferries per day to the major islands and almost daily ferries and inter-island flights to most of the other inhabited islands.