The Scottish Borders (often referred to locally as "The Borders" or "The Borderland") borders onto Dumfries and Galloway in the west, South Lanarkshire and West Lothian in the north west, City of Edinburgh, East Lothian, Midlothian to the north, and the counties of Northumberland and Cumbria in England to the south. The administrative centre of the area is Newtown St. Boswells. It covers all of the former counties of Berwickshire, Peeblesshire, Roxburghshire and Selkirkshire as well as part of Midlothian. Geographically the region is hilly in the south, west and north, with the River Tweed flowing west to east through the region. The east of the region is primarily flat sometimes with isolated small groups of hills. The Tweed and its tributaries drain the entire region with the river flowing into the North Sea at Berwick-upon-Tweed, and forming the border with England for the last twenty miles or so of its length. The administrative region was formed from four traditional burghs Peeblesshire, Roxburghshire, Selkirkshire and Berwickshire but historically, the term Borders has a wider meaning, referring to all of the burghs adjoining the English border, also including Dumfriesshire and Kirkcudbrightshire - as well as Northumberland, Cumberland and Westmorland in England.
Two millenia ago, besides the dozen forts on the hull, one or two outposts may have been held at Ardoch and Abernethy along the natural route which runs by Stirling and Perth to the lowlands of the east coast and passed by an important fort at Newstead near Melrose, and another at Inveresk (outside of Edinburgh), to the eastern end of Hadrian's Wall. The area around Argyle (Dalriada) where the Q-Celtic tribe of Scotii originally settled before they came to dominate the whole region west of Donegal. Hadrian was active in the wars against the Dacians as legate of the Macedonica. This northward extension of the empire was probably the result of attacks, maybe by the Selgovae of south-west Scotland, on the Roman buffer state of the Votadini who lived north of the Hadrianic frontier on Great Britain, and the Danube and Rhine. In 121AD, during the reign of the Emperor Hadrian, the Roman tribes and the Picts and Celts moved south from Caledonia into the lowlands and the Romans sent sorties north from their bases at Carlisle and Newcastle. The wall fortified the Roman Empire against the tribes of Scotland to the north and separating the Selgovae tribe and the Brigantes, as neither the Scoti tribe nor the English lived in Britain at the time of the wall's construction.
The Picts are believed to have arrived before the Northern Cruithne in Scotland from the Continent about 1000 BC and in Ireland from Scotland about 200 A.D. The land between the Roman Walls of Hadrian & Antoninus Pius inhabited by the P-Celtic peoples. This frontier was reached from the south by two roads. One, known in medieval times as Dete Street and misnamed Watling Street. The main municipalities: Colchester, Lincoln, York, Gloucester and St. Albans (Verulamium). The chief of these seem to be cantonal capitals, probably developed out of the market centres or capitals of the Celtic tribes before the Roman conquest. Such are Isurium Brigantum, capital of the Brigantes, 12 m. north-west of York and the most northerly Romano-British town; Ratae, now Leicester, capital of the Coritani; Viroconium, now Wroxeter, near Shrewsbury, capital of the Cornovii; Venta Silurum, now Caerwent, near Chepstow; Corinium, now Cirencester, capital of the Dobuni; Isca Dumnoniorum, now Exeter, the most westerly of these towns; Durnovaria, now Dorchester, in Dorset, capital of the Durotriges; Venta Belgarum, now Winchester; Calleva Atrebatum, now Silchester, 10 m. south of Reading; Durovernum Cantiacorum, now Canterbury; and Venta Icenorum, now Caistor-by-Norwich. Besides these country towns, Londinium (London).
Shropshire is part of the West Midlands region of England, though it is also described as being in the Welsh Marches. The wild hills and wilder tribes of Wales and Yorkshire offered far fiercer resistance and the great revolt of Boadicea of the Iceni and a large part of the nominally conquered Lowlands. This conversion of earthwork into stone in the age of Severus can be paralleled from other parts of the Roman empire. Behind these formidable garrisons, sheltered from barbarians and in easy contact with the Roman empire, stretched the lowlands of southern and eastern Britain. In the lands looking on to the Thames estuary (Kent, Essex, Middlesex) the process had perhaps begun before the Roman conquest. The civilization which had thus spread over half the island was genuinely Roman, identical in kind with that of the other western provinces of the empire, and in particular with that of northern Gaul. The Atecotti (Scotland or Ireland), Caereni (Sutherland), Lugi (Eastern Sutherland), Smertae (Southern Sutherland), Carnonacae (Western Highlands of Scotland), Decantae (Easter Ross), Damnonii (Strathclyde) , Epidii (Kintyre) , Taxali (Aberdeenshire), Caledonii (Invernessshire) , Novantae (Galloway) , Creones (Argyllshire) ... The Corionototae (Northumberland), Brigantes (Most of Northern England), Selgovae (upper Tweed basin), Carvetii (Cumberland), Iberni (Ireland), Cornovii (Caithness, Cheshire, Cornwall). Although Caithness, is sometimes classified under Highlands and Islands, it is also often considered 'Lowland.' The Ibero-Celts were most certainly Celts.
After the year 400 AD, the Romans retreated and the German and Celtic tribes settled down in these regions. The Celtiberians dwelt in the Iberian Peninsula. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, the southern Netherlands came under the authority of the Franks. The Northern-Lowlands remained (Frisia). The Chauci were a populous Germanic tribe inhabiting the extreme northwestern shore of Germany during Roman times - basically the stretch of coast between Frisia in the west to the Elbe estuary in the east. By early Carolingian time, a Frisian kingdom united the whole area from present-day West Frisia; the Dutch provinces of Friesland and Groningen and part of North Holland, throughout East Frisia up to the river Weser.