Dumfriesshire is a county in southern Scotland that forms a part of the Anglo-Scottish border region. It borders Lanarkshire to the north and Roxburghshire to the east. To the south east, the county borders the English county Cumberland at Liddesdale, with the south-west of the county facing the Solway Firth, an inlet of the Irish Sea. Kirkcudbrightshire lies to the west, with Ayrshire bordering the county to the north-west.
The county town is the former royal burgh of Dumfries.
History
It was recorded in the 2nd century AD that the lands which would become Dumfriesshire and Kirkcudrightshire were occupied by the Brittonic Celtic Selgovae tribe. Their ethnic name most likely meant "the hunters", from Proto-Celtic selgā and is thought unrelated to the name of the Solway Firth.
At the kingdom's height in the century, present-day Dumfriesshire was part of the Anglian kingdom Northumbria, which covered much of southern Scotland and Northern England. The Ruthwell Cross, an 8th-century Anglo-Saxon cross, and originates at the village of Ruthwell in Dumfriesshire.
The first known reference to Dumfriesshire as a shire of the Kingdom of Scotland was in the early 14th century.
Lockerbie in the heart of the county came to international attention in December 1988 when it became the scene of the deadliest terrorist attack in British history. Pan Am Flight 103 crashed into a residential street in the town after having been destroyed by a bomb. The incident killed all 259 people on board and 11 people on the ground.