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.