The Lord Lieutenant of Ross and Cromarty, is the British monarch's personal representative in an area which has been defined since 1975 as consisting of the local government districts of Ross and Cromarty and Skye and Lochalsh in Scotland, and this definition was renewed by the Lord-Lieutenants (Scotland) Order 1996.[1] Previously, the area of the lieutenancy was the county of Ross and Cromarty, which was abolished as a local government area by the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973. The districts were created, under the 1973 act as districts of the two-tier Highland region and abolished as local government areas under the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1994, which turned the Highland region into a unitary council area.
Prior to 1889 there had been a separate Lord Lieutenant of Ross and a Lord Lieutenant of Cromarty, but these were merged by the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1889, which directed that the incumbent Lord Lieutenant of Ross should automatically become the new Lord Lieutenant for Ross and Cromarty.[2]