Lerwick, chief town of Scotland’s Shetland Islands, an archipelago lying 130 miles (210 km) north of the Scottish mainland. Lerwick is the most northerly town in Britain. It is situated on a fine natural harbour on Bressay Sound on the eastern coast of the island of Mainland.
Lerwick originated as a fishing village and continued as such until the 19th century, when it became one of the major herring ports of Britain and expanded accordingly. The “old town,” huddled along the shore, contains many 17th-century buildings—including Fort Charlotte, first built by Oliver Cromwell and later burned and restored by George III, whose queen it was named after. Fishing was traditionally the backbone of the economy. Salt fish was exported from Lerwick in the 18th century; whaling and later herring fishing were dominant during the 19th century; and today whitefish, crabs, and lobsters are the mainstay. Large numbers of foreign vessels use the port and supply fish for the many freezing and processing plants. The North Sea oil boom beginning in the 1970s involved Shetland in the exploitation of the rich oil reserves of the eastern Shetland Basin, with its landfall terminal at Sullom Voe. This resulted in enormously increased port traffic and the emergence of Lerwick as an oil supply and service base, with associated engineering and ship-repairing industries.
The name Lerwick derives from Norse, and the strong Norse tradition of Shetland is dramatically represented in Lerwick’s Up-Helly-Aa (Fire Festival) at the end of January, when a full-sized model of a Norse longship is dragged through the town in a torchlight procession and then burned. The town is home to the Shetland Museum and Archives (2007), which contains artifacts relating to the islands’ history. Lerwick is the administrative centre of the Shetland Islands council area. Pop. (2001) 6,910; (2011) 6,960.