Green belt - Edinburgh Glasgow - Central Belt

* Areas highlighted in red do not show officially designated green belt, but green space separating conurbations. However, it is likely some or all of the space highlighted will be green belt.

* City centres tend to be lighter in colour in satellite images. The surburbs tend to show as dark grey, probably due to all the slate coloured house roofs.

* Click on the image for a larger version.

* The areas were highlighted, often after zooming in closer to see where suburbs ended. In the screengrabs of this ratio it isnt always quite as clear.

The capital of Scotland, Edinburgh and Scotland's largest city, Glasgow are both at the same lattitude, and with various towns between they form, what has become known as the Central Belt. This is Scotland's most populated area. As the satellite image covers a large area, it is from higher up than some of the images of other places featured eg. Leeds - Bradford, so the grey merges more with the green. However, the red areas were completed with a closer zoom for accuracy. They are the only farmland spaces in the Central Belt with few houses. Apart from these highlighted areas it really is a continuous belt of urbanisation from the west coast of Scotland, to the east coast.

To the north there is also another expanding urban belt stretching north east from Glasgow, to Cumbernauld, then there is some green space, before Falkirk. This area along with the other green areas in the central belt, will need to be protected if there is to be a wildlife corridor that joins southern Scotland with the rest of Scotland.