County of Moray

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County of Moray

Geography
Area - Total	Ranked 18th 304,606 acres (1233 km²)
County town	Elgin
Chapman code	MOR

Moray, or Morayshire or Elginshire (Moireibh in Gaelic) is one of the Registration counties of Scotland, bordering Nairnshire to the west, Inverness-shire to the south, and Banffshire to the east. It was also in use as a local government county of Scotland until 1975, with Elgin as the county town.

There were two large detached portions of Morayshire situated locally in Inverness-shire, and a corresponding part of Inverness-shire situated locally in Morayshire. With the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1889 these parts were merged into the county in which they locally lay. The county shown was officially called Elginshire, sharing the name of the Elginshire parliamentary constituency, so named since 1708.

In 1975, under the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973, most of the local government county was combined with Aberlour, Buckie, Cullen, Dufftown, Findochty, Keith and Portknockie areas of the county of Banffshire to form the Moray district of the Grampian region. Grantown-on-Spey and Cromdale areas were combined with Kingussie and Badenoch areas of the county of Inverness-shire to form the Badenoch and Strathspey district of the Highland region.

The registration county, for property, is County of Moray, and a slightly smaller area is a lieutenancy area named Moray. The latter is almost exactly of the rump of the traditional county, without its exclaves in Inverness-shire.