  lanarkshire, also called the county of lanark (, ) is a historic county in the central lowlands of scotland. historically, lanarkshire was the most populous county in scotland and, in earlier times, had considerably greater boundaries, including neighbouring renfrewshire until 1402. in modern times, it is bounded to the north by stirlingshire and a detached portion of dunbartonshire, to the northeast by stirlingshire, west lothian, to the east by peeblesshire, to the southeast and south by dumfriesshire, to the southwest by dumfriesshire and ayrshire and to the west by ayrshire, renfrewshire and dunbartonshire. lanarkshire was historically divided between two administrative areas. in the mid-18th century it was divided again into three wards: the upper, middle and lower wards with their administrative centres at lanark, hamilton and glasgow, respectively, and remained this way until the local government act of 1889. other significant settlements include east kilbride, motherwell, airdrie, coatbridge, blantyre, cambuslang, rutherglen, wishaw and carluke. in 1975, the county council was abolished and the area absorbed into the larger strathclyde region, which itself was divided into new council areas in 1996. the old area of lanarkshire is now occupied by the council areas of: *east dunbartonshire *glasgow city council *north lanarkshire *south lanarkshire north lanarkshire and south lanarkshire have a joint board for valuation and electoral registration. there is also a joint health board, which does not cover rutherglen and the surrounding area in south lanarkshire. without the northern portion of north lanarkshire, this is also a lieutenancy area. ==mining industry== from the mid-eighteenth century to the early twentieth century lanarkshire profited from its rich seams of coal. unfortunately, as the coal industry developed around glasgow in the 1700s the price of coal to the city rose under the control of a cartel of coal owners.{{cite book|last=hutton|first=guthrie|title=lanarksh
Counties_of_Scotland Lanarkshire Lieutenancy_areas_of_Scotland