h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Sorry, this is a gripe.

England has Counties

Scotland has REGIONS

Tricky one; Before 1970, Scotland had counties, such as Caithness, but these were amalgamated into 'regions', such as Highlands & Islands. Despite regions being in operation for over 30 years, many Scots still refer to their county in their postal address. To clarify this, we've added a footnote. Many thanks.

This is partly my fault... When checking the facts I found information about the 'former county' of Caithness, but nothing about what it was currently a part of... so I gave up and left it as a sep (someone else's problem)

Yes, we refer to it as "The county formerly known as Caithness".

My address ends:

Thurso
Caithness
KW14 ...

It has always been like that, although my house is only 20 years old. (Those who live in Thurso should now have a very good idea of where I live.)

Anyway, we used to be run by the Caithness and Sutherland Council. As my learned friend pointed out, this has now been amalgamated into the Highlands and Islands Council, so for local government it is different, but my address remains the same and Caithness is still shown very clearly on any map of Scotland (at least ones at a good enough scale)

Hope that clarifies this.(Incidently, since I know a little baout the Highland Council, they still make a distinction between counties, there are Caithness working groups, etc in the council to specifically wor on Caithness problems).