Stranraer is a town in Inch, Wigtownshire, in the west of Dumfries and Galloway, southwest Scotland. It lies on the shores of Loch Ryan, on the northern side of the isthmus joining the Rhins of Galloway to the mainland. Stranraer is Dumfries and Galloway's second-largest town, with a population including the surrounding area of nearly 13,000.
Stranraer is an administrative centre for the West Galloway Wigtownshire area of Dumfries and Galloway. It is best known as having been a ferry port connecting Scotland with Belfast (and previously with Larne) in Northern Ireland; the last service was transferred to Cairnryan in November 2011. The main industries in the area are the ferry port, with associated industries, tourism and, more traditionally, farming.
The name is generally believed to come from the Scottish Gaelic An t-Sron Reamhar meaning "The Fat Nose", but which more prosaically might be rendered as "the broad headland". Another interpretation would link the second element in the name with Rerigonium, an ancient settlement noted by Ptolemy in this part of Britain.
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