Scots Gaelic, really only still spoken as a native language in a few of the Western Islands.

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The Solomon Islands' Western Province, unsurprisingly, wants more power for its local assembly.

ECONOMIST: The Solomon Islands: The Pacific's first failed state? | The

The cost of petrol and diesel on the Western Isles and other Scottish islands has been a long running issue.

BBC: Scottish Fuels in offer to Western Isles customers

Duty later called Safferstein to the Mariana Islands in the western Pacific, where U.S. forces had built airfields to launch long-range raids on Japan itself, and in mid-1945 the two bombs from Los Alamos had been secretly delivered by Navy ship.

WSJ: Manhattan Project agent Safferstein dies in NYC

Situated on the western fringe of Greece's Dodecanese islands, Karpathos itself feels rather remote.

BBC: The lost world of Olymbos

Primary school class sizes are smallest in the Western Isles (14 pupils), followed by Shetland Islands and Orkney (both 17).

BBC: Shetland tops 'Bank of Scotland Quality of Life' list

Passengers would not accept longer ferry sailings between the mainland and the Western Isles to cut CO2 emissions, according to the islands' council.

BBC: Council urges caution on slowing isles' mainland links