Central Lowlands

The Central Lowlands, also called the Midland Valley, is a geologically defined belt of relatively low-lying terrain in southern Scotland, forming a rift valley between the Highland Boundary Fault to its north and the Southern Uplands Fault to its south. It is the most densely populated of Scotland's three main physiographic divisions, containing over three quarters of the country's population in cities including Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dunfermline, Stirling, Perth and Dundee. The region is largely underlain by Paleozoic rock formations bearing coal and iron ore deposits that fueled Scotland's Industrial Revolution, and it preserves striking volcanic remnants such as Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh, the eroded core of a volcano active in the Carboniferous period roughly 300 million years ago. Like the rest of Scotland, its landscape was further shaped by Pleistocene glaciation.