The largest blanket bog in Europe and a UNESCO World Heritage peatland in northern Scotland.
Flow Country
The Flow Country is a vast expanse of bog peatland in the far north of Scotland, spanning parts of Caithness and Sutherland. Covering roughly 4,000 square kilometers, it represents the largest blanket bog in Europe, a landscape of deep peat dotted with bog pools and shaped by thousands of years of growing, waterlogged plant material.
This wilderness is internationally significant both for its wildlife and for the climate functions it performs. Sphagnum moss, sundews, and butterworts build the peat layer, while breeding waders such as greenshank, dunlin, merlin, and golden plover define the birdlife of the open bog. Beneath the surface, the peat stores enormous quantities of carbon, making the Flow Country a major natural ally in the fight against global warming.
In 2024, UNESCO inscribed the Flow Country as a World Heritage Site under natural criterion ix, recognizing its unparalleled blanket bog habitat and its global importance. The designation builds on decades of restoration work led by conservation groups, particularly the RSPB, to undo the damage caused by past commercial forestry plantations and to safeguard one of Europe's most important wetland landscapes.
