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This state of affairs continued until May 1999 when Scotland's Parliament was established following a referendum. Whereas the old Scottish Parliament had functioned as the full parliament of a sovereign state, the new parliament governs the country only on domestic matters, the United Kingdom Parliament having retained responsibility for Scotland's defence, international relations and certain other areas.

Scotland has a civic culture somewhat distinct from that of the rest of the British Isles. It originates from various differences, some entrenched as part of the Act of Union, others facets of nationhood not readily defined but readily identifiable.

Scotland is one of the four constituent nations of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The UK has no single written constitution document. Until the 1707 Acts of Union Scotland was an independent nation state. However, upon these acts coming into effect both Scotland and England's parliaments were dissolved and reconstituted as a parliament for all of Great Britain using the former English parliament's buildings and executive institutions. The Scottish and English crowns were unified in 1603 when James VI of Scotland became James I of England. In 1801 the Kingdom of Great Britain was unified with Ireland.

The feudal system lingered on in Scots law on land ownership, so that a landowner still had obligations to a feudal superior including payment of feu duty. In 1974 legislation began a process of redeeming feuduties so that most of these payments were ended, but it was only with the attention of the Scottish Parliament that a series of acts (http://www.ejcl.org/83/art83-5.html) were passed, the first in 2000, for The Abolition of Feudal Tenure on November 28, 2004.

In 1997, the Blair Labour government of the United Kingdom held referendums on the issue of devolution: the creation of national assemblies in each of the three countries of the UK except England. Voters in all three countries voted in the affirmative, reversing parts of the three-hundred year old Union of the Parliaments. The new Scottish Parliament stands next to Holyrood House in Edinburgh.

Scotland currently elects 72 MPs from 72 single-member constituencies to serve in the House of Commons. This is an over-representation and it is expected that the number will be reduced in time for the next General Election. Indeed, the boundary commission for Scotland has recommended a reduction to 59 MPs. This over-representation was widely accepted before to allow for a greater Scottish voice in the Commons, but since the establishment of a Scottish Parliament it has been felt that this is less necessary.

Scotland ( Alba in Scottish Gaelic and sometimes known also as Caledonia) is a country or nation and former independent kingdom of northwest Europe, and one of the four constituent parts of the United Kingdom. Scotland has a land boundary with England on the island of Great Britain and is otherwise bounded by seas and oceans.

The Church of Scotland (often referred to as The Kirk) functions as the national church. It differs from the Church of England in that it has a Presbyterian form of church governance, not subject to state control. This goes back to the Scottish experience of reformation, initiated in 1560 by John Knox. The Scottish Reformation in essence took place at a grassroots level, and the Scots chose Presbyterianism as their method of church government. This differs from the situation in England, where Henry the Eighth personally unleashed the English Reformation and chose the Episcopal system that survives to this day in the Church of England.

Scotland retains its own distinct sense of nationhood. Academic research consistently shows that people in Scotland feel Scottish, whilst not necessarily feeling the need to see that translated into the establishment of a fully-independent Scottish nation-state.

The written history of Scotland largely begins with the coming of the Roman empire to Britain. Although the pre-Roman inhabitants occasionally used writing for commemorative purpose, these societies favoured a strong oral history. With the loss of the druidic tradition (due to war, famine, and particularly the proscriptions of later Christian missionaries), the people forgot much of this lore. The only surviving pre-Roman account of Scotland originated with the Greek Pytheas of Massalia who circumnavigated the British islands (which he called PretThe British Saint Ninian conducted the first Christian mission in Scotland. From his base, the Candida Casa (present-day Whithorn) on the Solway Firth, he spread the faith in the south and east of Scotland and in the north of England. However, according to the writings of Saint Patrick and Saint Columba, the Picts appear to have renounced Christianity in the century between Ninian's death (432) and the arrival of Saint Columba in 563. The reason is not known. The Gaels re-introduced Christianity into Pictish Scotland, gradually pushing out worship of the older Celtic gods. The most famous evangelist of that period, Saint Columba, came to Scotland in 563 and settled on the island of Iona. Some consider his (possibly apocryphal) conversion of the Pictish King Brude the turning point in the Christianization of Scotland.

Scotland, in the geographical sense it has retained for nearly a millennium, completed its expansion by the gradual subsumation of the Britons' kingdom of Strathclyde into Alba. In 1034, Duncan I, descended from Irish Ui Neill monastery protectors and appointed to the crown of Strathclyde some years earlier, inherited Alba from his maternal grandfather, Malcolm II. With the exception of Orkney, the Western Isles, Caithness and Sutherland, which had come under the sway of the Norse, Scotland stood unified.

In 1547, after the death of Henry VIII, forces under the English regent Thomas Somerset were victorious at the battle of Pinkie Cleugh, the climax of the Rough Wooing and followed up by occupying Edinburgh. However it was to no avail since Queen Mary was in France and Marie de Guise called on French reinforcements who helped stiffen resistance to the English occupation. By 1550, after a change of regent in England, the English withdrew from Scotland completely.

The Scottish National Party (SNP) was formed in the 1930s with the aim of achieving Scottish independence. They are broadly on the left-of-centre and are in the European Social-Democratic mould. They are currently the second most popular party electorally, although their highpoint appears to have been in the 1970s.

Until 1832 Scottish politics remained very much in the control of landowners in the country, and of small cliques of merchants in the burghs. However by 1885 around 50% of the male population had the vote, the secret ballot had become established, and the modern political era had started.

Humans have lived in Scotland since the end of the last glaciation, around 10,000 years ago. Of the stone, bronze, and iron age civilisations which occupied the country, many artefacts, but few examples of writing, remain. Thus the written History of Scotland largely begins with the arrival of the Roman Empire in Britain. From a classical historical viewpoint Scotland seemed a peripheral country, slow to gain advances filtering out from the Mediterranean fount of civilisation, but as knowledge of the past increases it seems remarkable how early and advanced some developments have been, and how important the seaways were to Scottish history. The country's lengthy struggle with England, its more powerful neighbour to the south, repeatedly forced it to rely on trade, cultural and often strategic ties with a number of European powers. Following the Act of Union and the subsequent Scottish Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution, Scotland became one of the commercial, intellectual and industrial powerhouses of Europe. Its industrial decline following World War II was particularly acute, but in recent decades the country has enjoyed something of a cultural and economic renaissance, fuelled in part by a resurgent financial services sector, the proceeds of North Sea oil and gas, and latterly a devolved parliament.