The Scottish Borders is a council area in southeastern Scotland, bounded to the south by the English counties of Northumberland and Cumbria and to the west and north by Dumfries and Galloway and the Lothians. Rivers such as the Tweed and the Ettrick cross the region; the Tweed supports salmon fishing and runs through towns including Melrose, Kelso and Peebles. The coastline around Eyemouth and St Abbs Head has sheer cliffs and a national nature reserve where puffin and guillemot colonies breed. Rail services were partly restored with the Borders Railway to Tweedbank, linking the area to Edinburgh by rail.
Settlements such as Hawick, Galashiels, Selkirk and Jedburgh grew around textile mills, markets and abbeys. Melrose Abbey is associated with the burial of Robert the Bruce’s heart. Hawick stages an annual Common Riding in which riders inspect the town’s marches, a practice tied to the region’s border history and the Reivers era. Fortified towers and sites such as Hermitage Castle mark frontier conflicts. Agriculture, fishing, tourism and remaining textile production form the main strands of the local economy.
