County of Moray

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(Redirected from Elginshire)

County of Moray

Geography
Area - Total	Ranked 18th 304,606 acres(1233 km²)
County town	Elgin
Chapman code	MOR

Moray (Moireibh in Gaelic) is one of the registration counties of Scotland, bordering Nairnshire to the west, Inverness-shire to the south, and Banffshire to the east. It was formerly in use as a local government county until 1975, when Elgin was the county town.

Prior to 1889 there were two large detached portions of Moray situated locally in Inverness-shire, and a corresponding part of Inverness-shire situated locally in Moray. With the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1889 these parts were merged into the areas in which they locally lay. The county was officially called Elginshire, or informally 'Morayshire' (see Scotlandshire), sharing the name of the Elginshire parliamentary constituency, so named since 1708.

In 1975, under the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973, most of the county was combined with Aberlour, Buckie, Cullen, Dufftown, Findochty, Keith and Portknockie areas of the county of Banffshire to form the Moray district of the Grampian region. Grantown-on-Spey and Cromdale areas were combined with Kingussie and Badenoch areas of the county of Inverness-shire to form the Badenoch and Strathspey district of the Highland region.

The registration county, for property, is 'County of Moray', and a slightly smaller area, also based on the former county, is a lieutenancy area named 'Moray'.