Argyll - County and District

County and District

Argyll (sometimes anglified as Argyllshire) is a registration county of Scotland and additionally between 1890 and 1975 it was a county for local government purposes. Argyll's neighbouring counties are Inverness-shire, Perthshire, Dunbartonshire, Renfrewshire, Ayrshire and Bute. Renfrewshire and Ayrshire are the other side of the Firth of Clyde. Bute is a county of islands in the firth.

The county town was historically Inveraray, which is still the seat of the Duke of Argyll. Lochgilphead later claimed to be the county town, as the seat of local government for the county from the nineteenth century. Neither town was the largest settlement geographically nor in terms of population however. Argyll's largest towns were (and are) Oban, Dunoon and Campbeltown.

The Small Isles of Muck/Muick, Rum/Rhum, Canna and Sanday were part of the county, until they were transferred to Inverness-shire in 1891 by the boundary commission appointed under the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1889. The island of Egg/Eigg was already in Inverness-shire.

The use of the County of Argyll for local government purposes ceased in 1975 with its area being split between Highland and Strathclyde Regions. A local government district called Argyll and Bute was formed in the Strathclyde region, including most of Argyll and the Isle of Bute. The Ardnamurchan, Ardgour, Ballachulish, Duror, Glencoe, Kinlochleven and Morvern areas of Argyll were detached to become part of Lochaber District, in Highland. They remained in Highland following the 1996 revision.

In 1996 a new unitary council area of Argyll and Bute was created, with a change to boundaries to include part of the former Strathclyde district of Dumbarton.