Article by Simon Haughtone

The town of Thurso – Highland, Scotland lies along the north coast of Scotland’s local government area, Highland. Currently, nearly 9000 people call this very beautiful area home and are proud to boast that the town’s history goes back at least as far as the Norse Orcadian rulers who dominated the county of Caithness until 1266.

As evidence of this Norse rule, consider that “Thurso” means “Bull’s water” in the Old Norse language. The town is also a former burgh under the old Scottish system of classification and is one of two such burghs within the county of Caithness, which still exists to this day and is a historic local government area that has a deep and abiding Scottish history to it.

The Norse considered the town a very important port and it continued on as such, trading with many northern European cities all the way up to the 19th century. Today, the majority of the town is the result of a planned 19th century development effort with a large expansion that took place in the mid-1900s in order to support a nearby nuclear power plant.

Thurso is also well-known as being the northernmost town on the United Kingdom’s mainland and is at the very northern end of the A9 roadway. The nearest large city is Inverness, which is over 110 miles to the south of the town. The closest other town is Wick, which is about 21 miles to the southeast of Thurso. It also benefits from a railway station, by the way.

There is a river which flows through the town (the River Thurso) and the river estuary provides the town a small harbor from which it benefits. Locals like to spend time along the very nice beach which also looks out over the Pentland Firth. There is also a major surfing championship and the area is considered a hotbed for local surfing and for surfers throughout the United Kingdom.

The Highland local government area — in which the town of Thurso resides — is the largest local government area of its kind in both Scotland and the United Kingdom. It is a place of wild natural beauty and has around 220,000 people that call the area home, making it one of the most sparsely populated regions in the United Kingdom.

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For accommodation in Thurso check this list of Thurso hotels.