Scapa Bay lies at the southern end of the narrow isthmus which divides the Mainland of Orkney. At the northern end is Kirkwall, once a Viking settlement, and the spire of St Magnus Cathedral has always been an important guide for mariners in the Flow.

In Orphir are the remains of a 12th century Viking hall and a Mediterranean-styled round church. At the nearby Orkneyinga Visitor Centre more can be discovered about Orkney’s Viking heritage. Viking place names such as Paplay, Holm, meaning a monastic settlement, and Burray, broch island also provide clues to early settlements. Other names tell us about the landscape, as, for example, Flotta (flat island) and Hoy (high island).

Guarding the entrance to Longhope are two Martello Towers and a gun battery, built to protect the anchorage from French and American privateers towards the end of the Napoleonic era. Only three such towers were ever built in Scotland; the third is at Leith in Edinburgh. Nearby, the old lifeboat shed at Brims is now home to the Longhope Lifeboat Museum.

Stromness grew in importance as a trading port for whalers heading to the Davis Strait, off Greenland, and for the Canada-bound ships of the Hudsons Bay Company. Today, many Canadians can claim Orcadian descent, which is reflected in both place names and surnames. From Stromness Arctic explorers sailed to seek fame, fortune and the North West Passage. They included Orcadian, John Rae, from the Hall of Clestrain which was once raided by the pirate, John Gow, an episode which served as inspiration for Sir Walter Scott’s The Pirate. The herring fleet visited Stromness regularly as did the fish workers who followed, to gut and cure the landed catch. The story of Scapa Flow’s maritime past is displayed at Stromness Museum.

Cut off from direct access to their fishing grounds, two herring ports greatly affected by the building of the Churchill Barriers were St Margaret’s Hope and Burray Village whose old herring station is now a hotel. Set in a sheltered bay, St Margaret’s Hope is Orkney’s third largest community and ferry port with galleries and craft shops galore. On Burray, the Fossil Museum tells an older story of Orkney, while the Marine Aquarium on South Ronaldsay offers the chance to meet some of Orkney’s piscine residents.

After the First World War, Cox and Danks introduced a new industry into Scapa Flow when they began raising some of the scuttled German Fleet. Most of this work was done between 1924 and 1939. Today the seven remaining German wrecks are very popular with visiting divers, and MV Guide with its remotely operated camera allows even non-swimmers to view the ships. Two other important British wrecks, HMS Royal Oak and HMS Vanguard, are designated as war graves and should not be dived upon.

In the 1970s the oil industry arrived in Scapa Flow, leading to the construction of an oil terminal on Flotta. Since then, tankers sitting at anchor in the Flow have become a common sight, as has the Flotta flare which lights up the night sky and is visible for miles around.

From the age of the sagas onwards, Scapa Flow has been a source of inspiration for composers, poets, writers, artists and craft workers. There are many sites on the Craft and Heritage Trails around the Flow which are open to visitors.