Forgotten Woodlands, or Coilltean Caillte in Gaelic, is a project that has digitally mapped over 15,000 Scottish place-names that indicate woodland presence. This open-source story map hopes to connect communities with their cultural heritage and identify the locations of historical woodlands.

Scotland

Forgotten Woodlands Story Map

Forgotten Woodlands (in Gaelic Coilltean Caillte) gathers and digitally maps Scottish place-names that imply the presence of woodland. The open-source ArcGIS story map highlights the ways that naming enables landscapes to be understood and read, allowing cultural, social and environmental heritage to come to light. The map focuses on Gaelic names, though names from Scots, English, Old Norse and British are also included. This Gaelic focus seeks to connect communities to these linguistic roots.

So far, over 15,000 place-names have been registered. While some names correspond to areas of ancient woodland, others sit over bare ground—a palimpsest that hints at past forest ecologies. These maps indicate how landscapes have shifted over time. In a context of increasingly popular landscape regeneration and rewilding projects, the Forgotten Woodlands map could be used to inform land management decisions going forward.

The digital nature of the map encourages distributed participation . Case studies and language facts on the website make the Gaelic names accessible to non-Gaelic speaking audiences. For example, the website explains that juniper can be known in Gaelic as fiodh nam mèirleach, 'wood of the robbers', as it is smokeless when burnt.

Forgotten Woodlands is a partnership project between NatureScot, Forestry and Land Scotland and Gaelic Place-Names of Scotland.

Screenshot 2024-11-27 at 13.31.31

Screenshot from Forgotten Woodlands webpage

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