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The Orkney Islands are an archipelago consisting of
70 small islands and the main one Mainland belonging to Scottland. It lies about 16km off
Caithness separated by Pentland Firth. Both the most important towns are Kirkwall and
Stromness. Kirkwall is the point of administrative with about 7000 inhabitants and
Sttromness with 2000 inhabitants is the port of ferry service from Mainland. Both are
lieing in Mainland. The inhabitants of Orkney are called Orkadier. The dialect still
spoken nowadays is the rest of the scandinavian language Norrøn spokenbetween 800 and
1700 a.C. The Orkneys are situated between 58 and 59 degrees northern latitude. The
corresponds off St. Petersburg and South Greenland. The isles belonging to the archipelago
are spreaded over an area of 50km east to west and 85km north to south. Half of 974km²
fall to Mainland.