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Caithness (Gallaibh ˈkal̪ɣɪv; Caitnes; Katanes) is a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland. Caithness has a land boundary with the historic county of Sutherland to the west and is otherwise bounded by sea. The land boundary follows a watershed and is crossed by two roads (the A9 and the A836) and by one railway (the Far North Line). Across the Pentland Firth, ferries link Caithness with Orkney, and Caithness also has an airport at Wick. The Pentland Firth island of Stroma is within Caithness. The name was also used for the earldom of Caithness ( 1334 onwards) and for the Caithness constituency of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (1708 to 1918). Boundaries are not identical in all contexts, but the Caithness area lies entirely within the Highland council area. Until its demise in the 19th century, the Norn language was the common language of everyday communication for people in Caithness, before being gradually overtaken by Scots (and later, English). The Caith element of the name Caithness comes from the name of a Pictish tribe known as the Cat or Catt people, or Catti (see Kingdom of Cat). The -ness element comes from Old Norse and means "headland". The Norse called the area Katanes ("headland of the Catt people"), and over time this became Caithness. The Gaelic name for Caithness, Gallaibh, means "among the strangers", referring to the Norse. The name of the Catti survives in the Gaelic name for eastern Sutherland, Cataibh, and in the old Gaelic name for Shetland, Innse Chat. Caithness extends about north-south and about east-west, with a roughly triangular-shaped area of about . The topography is generally flat, in contrast to the majority of the remainder of the North of Scotland. Until the latter part of the 20th century when large areas were planted in conifers, this level profile was rendered still more striking by the almost total absence of woodland. It is a land of open, rolling farmland, moorland and scattered settlements.

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