Skye is the largest and northernmost of the Hebrides islands off the west of Scotland.


It's off the northwest coast of Scotland. The island is about 50 kilometres long and less than 5 miles wide at its widest point. Most of the island is high marshland, not suitable for cultivation. Since ancient times, Skye has been a desolate, barren island.


Skye is the largest and northernmost island in Scotland's Inner Hebrides and the closest to mainland Scotland. It is part of the Scottish Highland Council District, part of the Historic County of Inverness. It is less than 8km (5 mi) at its widest point. Small farms are still widespread.


In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, farmers lived in extreme hardship and many were forced to leave their homes. Currently the most important local economic source of farmed fisheries, especially salmon. Tourism is an important industry. Portree is the largest settlement and produces woollen textiles.


The word Skye is An Anglicization of Gaelic and t-Eilean Sgitheanach and was originally thought to be self-skits. Meaning "wing" in Old Celtic, it may have been used to describe the shape of an island. But many now believe the name comes from a pre-Celtic local language. Roman and Greek texts called them Scitis and Scetis. In Scottish Gaelic, the Isle of Skye is also known as Eilean a 'Cheo, which means "island in the mist".


Much of Skye consists of igneous rocks from the Early Cenozoic (Eocene), one of the most famous periods of volcanic activity in the North Atlantic region. Four distinct features emerged from the event. The first is the overflow of lava MATS. Lava solidifies on the surface into basalt, which covers much of the north and central Isle of Skye. Although the fact that the lava sheets ended up as cliffs offshore suggests that they were once far more extensive. They have been subjected to intense cutting, partly by sea erosion, mostly by faulting.


On the western Isle of Skye, between Lochs Blackdale and Brittle, basalts are 150 to 275 meters (500 to 900 feet) thick. It consists of several lava flows. Further north, at Dunwegen Point there are about 25 different sheets of rock with a total thickness of more than 300 meters (1,000 feet).


The second is that the material condensing into a cake of coarse-grained crystalline gabbro at deep depth squeezes into the basalt. The overlying basalt has been largely eroded.


Third, materials of very different chemical compositions are similarly squeezed into the basalt, which cools down deep into the granite. Finally, a large number of small basalt and coarse basalt intrusions -- dike and bed -- intrude into the basalt and gabbro at a much later time.


Cape Nestor Lighthouse is located on the Isle of Skye in Scotland. Away from the world, it is an escape from Britain and the best-preserved culture in the Highlands of Scotland. Cape Nestor is the westernmost point of Sky Island, the largest of the Hebrides in Scotland, jutting directly into the Arctic Ocean.


The Cape Nestor Lighthouse was built in 1909. It was designed by David Alan Stevenson. Perched on a cliff, it is a far cry from the comfort of a coastal lighthouse, which is said to stand on the edge of the world.


Cape Nestor Lighthouse is the most famous lighthouse in Scotland and one of the ten most beautiful lighthouses in the world. It was first lit on November 1, 1909. The aerial ropeway was used to supply the lighthouse and cabins. Since 1990, the Lighthouse has been remotely operated from the Northern Lighthouse Board headquarters in Edinburgh. The former keeper's Lodge is now privately owned and the lighthouse was listed as a Class B protected building in 1971.