Loch Lomond in the context of "Islands of Scotland"

Strathclyde (Welsh: Ystrad Clud, "valley of the Clyde"), also known as Cumbria, was a Brittonic kingdom in northern Britain during the Middle Ages. It comprised parts of what is now southern Scotland and North West England, a region the Welsh tribes referred to as Yr Hen Ogledd (“the Old North"). At its greatest extent in the 10th century, it stretched from Loch Lomond to the River Eamont at Penrith. Strathclyde seems to have been annexed by the Goidelic-speaking Kingdom of Alba in the 11th century, becoming part of the emerging Kingdom of Scotland.

In its early days it was called the kingdom of Alt Clud, the Brittonic name of its capital, and it controlled the region around Dumbarton Rock. This kingdom emerged during Britain's post-Roman period and may have been founded by the Damnonii people. After the sack of Dumbarton by a Viking army from Dublin in 870, the capital seems to have moved to Govan and the kingdom became known as Strathclyde. It expanded south to the Cumbrian Mountains, into the former lands of Rheged. The neighbouring Anglo-Saxons called this enlarged kingdom Cumbraland. We do not know what the inhabitants called their polity, though it may have been referred to as “Cumbria.”

A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775) is a travel narrative by Samuel Johnson about an eighty-three-day journey through Scotland, in particular the islands of the Hebrides, in the late summer and autumn of 1773. The sixty-three-year-old Johnson was accompanied by his thirty-two-year-old friend of many years James Boswell, who was also keeping a record of the trip, published in 1785 as A Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides. The two narratives are often published as a single volume, which is beneficial for comparing two perspectives of the same events, although they are very different in approach---Johnson focused on Scotland, and Boswell focused on Johnson. (Boswell went on to write a famous biography of Johnson.) In that biography, Boswell gave the itinerary of the trip as beginning at Edinburgh after landing at Berwick upon Tweed, then to St Andrews, Aberdeen, Inverness, and Fort Augustus. From there they went on to the islands of the Hebrides: Skye, Raasay, Coll, Mull, Inch Kenneth, and Iona. Returning to the mainland in Argyll they visited Inverary, Loch Lomond, Dumbarton, Glasgow, Loudoun, Auchinleck in Ayrshire (Boswell's family home), and Hamilton, and then finished the journey by returning to Edinburgh. Boswell summarised the trip as, "[Johnson] thus saw the four Universities of Scotland, its three principal cities, and as much of the Highland and insular life as was sufficient for his philosophical contemplation."

The Highland Boundary Fault is a major fault zone that traverses Scotland from Arran and Helensburgh on the west coast to Stonehaven in the east. It separates two different geological terranes which give rise to two distinct physiographic terrains: the Highlands and the Lowlands, and in most places it is recognisable as a change in topography. Where rivers cross the fault, they often pass through gorges, and the associated waterfalls can be a barrier to salmon migration.

The fault is believed to have formed in conjunction with the Strathmore syncline to the south-east during the Acadian orogeny in a transpressive regime that caused the uplift of the Grampian block and a small sinistral movement on the Highland Boundary Fault.

Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park (Scottish Gaelic: Pàirc Nàiseanta Loch Laomainn is nan Tròisichean) is a national park in Scotland centred on Loch Lomond and the hills and glens of the Trossachs, along with several other ranges of hills. It was the first of the two national parks established by the Scottish Parliament in 2002, the second being the Cairngorms National Park. The park extends to cover much of the western part of the southern highlands, lying to the north of the Glasgow conurbation, and contains many mountains and lochs. It is the fourth-largest national park in the British Isles, with a total area of 1,865 km (720 sq mi) and a boundary of some 350 km (220 mi) in length. It features 21 Munros (including Ben Lomond, Ben Lui, Beinn Challuim, Ben More and two peaks called Ben Vorlich) and 20 Corbetts.

The park straddles the Highland Boundary Fault, which divides it into two distinct regions - lowland and highland - that differ in underlying geology, soil types and topography. The change in rock type can most clearly be seen at Loch Lomond itself, as the fault runs across the islands of Inchmurrin, Creinch, Torrinch and Inchcailloch and over the ridge of Conic Hill. To the south lie green fields and cultivated land; to the north, mountains.

Loch (/lɒx/ LOKH) is a word meaning "lake" or "sea inlet" in Scottish and Irish Gaelic, subsequently borrowed into English. In Irish contexts, it often appears in the anglicized form "lough". A small loch is sometimes called a lochan. Lochs which connect to the sea may be called "sea lochs" or "sea loughs".