Cairngorms and East Coast

The Cairngorms are the focal point of a national park in north east Scotland, established in 2003. It was the second of two national parks established by the Scottish Parliament, after Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park, set up in 2002. The park covers the Cairngorms range of mountains, and surrounding hills. Already the largest national park in the British Isles, in 2010 it expanded into Highland and Perth and Kinross. Extending east from the Cairngorms, the region is bounded by the Moray Firth and the North Sea. Geographically diverse, the landscape in the south of the region is comprised predominantly of undulating farmland, but as you travel further north, this gives way to wooded glens, mountains and increasingly harsh land fringed by a dramatic coast of cliffs and long sandy beaches.