Giant's Causeway in the context of "Ulster Way"

County Antrim (named after the town of Antrim, from Irish Aontroim, meaning 'lone ridge') is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, located within the historic province of Ulster. Adjoined to the north-east shore of Lough Neagh, the county covers an area of 3,086 square kilometres (1,192 sq mi) and has a population of 651,321, as of the 2021 census. County Antrim has a population density of 211 people per square kilometre or 546 people per square mile. It is also one of the thirty-two traditional counties of Ireland.

The Glens of Antrim offer isolated rugged landscapes, the Giant's Causeway is a unique landscape and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Bushmills produces whiskey, and Portrush is a popular seaside resort and nightlife area. The majority of Belfast, the capital city of Northern Ireland, is in County Antrim, with the remainder being in County Down.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Sites are places of importance to cultural or natural heritage as described in the UNESCO World Heritage Convention, established in 1972. Cultural heritage consists of monuments (such as architectural works, monumental sculptures, or inscriptions), groups of buildings, and sites (including archaeological sites). Natural features (consisting of physical and biological formations), geological and physiographical formations (including habitats of threatened species of animals and plants), and natural sites which are important from the point of view of science, conservation or natural beauty are defined as natural heritage. The United Kingdom ratified the convention on 29 May 1984, making its sites eligible for inclusion on the list.

There are 35 World Heritage Sites in the United Kingdom and the British Overseas Territories. Out of these sites, one site is located in both England and Scotland (the Frontiers of the Roman Empire), eighteen are exclusively in England, seven in Scotland, four in Wales, two in Northern Ireland, and one in each of the overseas territories of Bermuda, Gibraltar, the Pitcairn Islands, and Saint Helena. The first sites in the UK to be inscribed on the World Heritage List were Giant's Causeway and Causeway Coast; Durham Castle and Cathedral; Ironbridge Gorge; Studley Royal Park including the Ruins of Fountains Abbey; Stonehenge, Avebury and Associated Sites; and the Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in Gwynedd in 1986. The most recent site listed was Gracehill, as a part of transnational site Moravian Church Settlements, in 2024. Among the 35 sites, 29 are listed for their cultural significance, five for their natural significance, and one, St Kilda, for both. In addition, there are five sites on the tentative list. The UK has served on the World Heritage Committee once.

Trap rock, also known as either trapp or trap, is any dark-colored, fine-grained, non-granitic intrusive or extrusive igneous rock. Types of trap rock include basalt, peridotite, diabase, and gabbro. Trap is also used to refer to flood (plateau) basalts, such as the Deccan Traps and Siberian Traps. The erosion of trap rock created by the stacking of successive lava flows often creates a distinct stairstep landscape from which the term trap was derived from the Swedish word trappa, which means "stairs".

The slow cooling of magma either as a sill or as a thick lava flow sometimes creates systematic vertical fractures within the resulting layer of trap rock. These fractures often form rock columns that are typically hexagonal but could be four- to eight-sided.

Dunseverick (from Irish Dún Sobhairce 'Sobhairce's fort') is a hamlet near the Giant's Causeway in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. The name is also the alias for the townland of Feigh. It is most notable for Dunseverick Castle.

One of the five great highways, or slighe of ancient Ireland, Slige Midluachra, had its terminal point at Dunseverick, running from here to Emain Macha and further to royal Tara and the fording point on the Liffey at what is now Dublin.

Bushmills (Irish Gaelic: Muileann na Buaise ) is a village on the north coast of County Antrim, Northern Ireland. Bushmills had a population of 1,247 in the 2021 Census. It is located 60 miles (97 km) from Belfast, 11 miles (18 km) from Ballycastle and 9 miles (14 km) from Coleraine. The village owes its name to the River Bush and to a large watermill that was built there in the early 17th century. It is home to the Old Bushmills Distillery, which produces Irish whiskey, and is near the Giant's Causeway.

The North Atlantic Igneous Province (NAIP) is a large igneous province in the North Atlantic, centered on Iceland. In the Paleogene, the province formed the Thulean Plateau, a large basaltic lava plain, which extended over at least 1.3 million km (500 thousand mi) in area and 6.6 million km (1.6 million mi) in volume. The plateau was broken up during the opening of the North Atlantic Ocean leaving remnants preserved in north Ireland, west Scotland, the Faroe Islands, northwest Iceland, east Greenland, western Norway and many of the islands located in the north eastern portion of the North Atlantic Ocean. The igneous province is the origin of the Giant's Causeway and Fingal's Cave. The province is also known as Brito–Arctic province (also known as the North Atlantic Tertiary Volcanic Province) and the portion of the province in the British Isles is also called the British Tertiary Volcanic Province or British Tertiary Igneous Province.