ETTRICK AND LAUDERDALE

district, Borders region, southern Scotland, created by the local government reorganization of 1975 from the former county of Selkirk and parts of the former counties of Berwick, Roxburgh, and Midlothian. The district covers an area of 524 square miles (1,356 square km) of the Southern Uplands, drained primarily by the Ettrick Water, Yarrow Water, Leader Water, and River Teviot, all of which meet the River Tweed as the latter flows eastward to the North Sea. The highest landheavily glaciated undulating plateau reaching 2,000 feet (600 m)lies in the west and southwest and is given over to sheep and cattle raising. Farther east the lower altitudes and fertile glacial deposits in the valleys allow cultivation of barley, oats, and fodder crops. The area was settled by Picts, Romans, and Anglo-Saxons before being annexed to Scotland in 1020 and later suffered from centuries of border warfare. The Selkirk area, especially, suffered from the Battle of Flodden in 1513, when the Scottish army was annihilated by the English. The market towns of Galashiels, the seat of the district authority, and Selkirk are noted for their traditional, but gradually declining, woolen knitwear and tweed industries, their recent establishment of electronics firms, and their close historic association with the novelist Sir Walter Scott, who once was a sheriff of Selkirk. Pop. (1989 est.) 33,930.