County of Bute

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This article is about the county in Scotland. For other uses of the term, see Bute (disambiguation).

County of Bute

Geography
Area - Total	Ranked 30th 143,997 acres (583 km²)
County town	Rothesay
Chapman code	BUT

The County of Bute (Siorrachd Bhòid in Gaelic) is one of the registration counties of Scotland. In 2001 its usually resident population was 13,720.

Bute, also known as Buteshire, was a local government county of Scotland with its own elected county council from 1890 to 1975. The council area comprised a number of islands in the Firth of Clyde, between the local government counties of Argyll and Ayrshire, the principal islands being the Isle of Bute, the Isle of Arran, Great Cumbrae and Little Cumbrae.

The county town was Rothesay, located on the Isle of Bute.

In 1975 the county area was divided between the Argyll and Cunninghame districts of the Strathclyde region. The Isle of Bute became part of Argyll while the Isle of Arran and the Cumbraes became part of Cunninghame.

As a result of local government reorganisation in 1996, when unitary council areas were created, the Isle of Bute is now part of Argyll and Bute, and the other islands are within North Ayrshire.

There was a Buteshire constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of Great Britain from 1708 to 1800 and of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1918. Between 1708 and 1832 it was one of the Buteshire and Caithness alternating constituencies: one constituency elected a Member of Parliament (MP) to one parliament then the other elected an MP to the next. Between 1832 and 1918 it was a separate constituency, electing an MP to every parliament.

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Bute (county).

In 1918 the constituency was combined with the Ayrshire North constituency to form the Bute and Northern Ayrshire constituency, a constituency which straddled the boundary between the local government counties of Bute and Ayrshire.

In 1983, eight years after Scottish local government counties had been abolished, the Bute and Northern Ayrshire constituency was divided between the Argyll and Bute constituency and the Cunninghame North constituency.