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Lothian (Lowden in Scots, Lodainn in Gaelic) forms a traditional region of Scotland, lying between the southern shore of the Firth of Forth and the Lammermuir Hills.

Historically, the term Lothian is used for a province encompassing the present area plus the Scottish Borders region. The name is related to the legendary British King Loth or Lot. In the 7th century it became the northern part of the Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria.

Subsequent Scottish history saw Lothian subdivided into the shires of West Lothian, Midlothian and East Lothian — leading to the phrase "the Lothians". Occasionally these were known by the anglicised names of "Linlithgowshire", "Edinburghshire" and "Haddingtonshire", which omitted all reference to Lothian.

The Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 abolished the counties and burghs as local government units, replacing them with Regions and Districts. Lothian Regional Council formally took over responsibility in May 1975.

The Region was responsible for education, social work, water, sewerage, transport (including local buses within Edinburgh). Certain services provided by joint boards with neighbouring Borders Regional Council - notably for Lothian & Borders Police and the Lothian & Borders Fire Brigade. These joint authorities continue.

The two-tier system of local government was criticised by some as providing needless duplication. Lothian Regional Council was abolished in 1994, replaced by a unitary system of local government from 1996. The former District Council areas of West Lothian, City of Edinburgh, Midlothian and East Lothian were used as the basis for the new Councils. The last convener of Lothian Regional Council was Eric Milligan, who later served as Lord Provost of Edinburgh. Lothian Regional Council also organised a series of lectures known as the Lothian Lectures, a notable speaker was Mikhail Gorbachev.

Lothian continues to have joint boards for valuation and electoral registration. Lothian Health Board (NHS) was not a local government responsibility.

The name lived on in the LRT, or Lothian Regional Transport, bus company, known as Lothian Buses from 2000, and the NHS Lothian trust.

In the post-Roman period, Lothian was dominated by Brythonic speakers whose language was akin to Welsh and Cornish and came to be part of Hen Ogledd. Remnants can be found in placenames such as Lothian, Tranent, Linlithgow and Penicuik ^[1].

Lothian is notable in Scotland for being the only part of the nation to have been mainly Anglo-Saxon throughout the history of the Kingdom of Scotland and was described by Adam of Dryburgh as "The land of the English in the Kingdom of the Scots".

Although one of the few areas of mainland Scotland where the Gaelic language did not achieve dominance — the presence of the language is attributed to the "temporary occupation…the presence of a landowning Gaelic-speaking aristocracy and their followers for something like 150-200 years" ^[2] — there are some placenames from the language ^[1][3], e.g. Dalry, Dunbar, Balerno and Cockenzie.

Over time and due to various factors the language of the Lothians and the former Kingdom of Northumbria, a northern variety of Middle English, also known as Early Scots came to displace Gaelic as the language of lowland Scotland and adopted for itself the name "Scottis" ("Scots") which had previously been used to refer to Gaelic, which later became known as "Erse" ("Irish") — now considered derogatory. The dialects of the Lothians, are sometimes considered to be part of Central Scots.

1. ^ ^{a b} Ancient Lothian. cyberscotia.net.
2. ^ W. F. H. Nicolaisen (2001). Scottish Place Names. John Donald Publishers, 240 pp. ISBN 0-859-76556-3. 
3. ^ Craig Cockburn. "Gaelic roots need to be unearthed", BBC News, 2005-11-02. 

• Lothian Buses
• NHS Lothian