Portal:Scotland

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Introduction

Flag of Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjacent islands, principally in the archipelagos of the Hebrides and the Northern Isles. To the south-east, Scotland has its only land border, which is 96 miles (154 km) long and shared with England; the country is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, the North Sea to the north-east and east, and the Irish Sea to the south. The population in 2022 was 5,439,842. Edinburgh is the capital and Glasgow is the most populous of the cities of Scotland.

The Kingdom of Scotland emerged as an independent sovereign state in the 9th century. In 1603, James VI succeeded to the thrones of England and Ireland, forming a personal union of the three kingdoms. On 1 May 1707, Scotland and England combined to create the new Kingdom of Great Britain, with the Parliament of Scotland subsumed into the Parliament of Great Britain. In 1999, a Scottish Parliament was re-established, and has devolved authority over many areas of domestic policy. The Scottish Government is the executive arm of the devolved government, headed by the first minister who chairs the cabinet and responsible for government policy and international engagement. Further powers are devolved to local government from the Scottish Government to the country's 32 subdivisions (known as "council areas").

The country has its own distinct legal system, education system and religious history, which have all contributed to the continuation of Scottish culture and national identity. Scottish English and Scots are the most widely spoken languages in the country, existing on a dialect continuum with each other. Scottish Gaelic speakers can be found all over Scotland, but the language is largely spoken natively by communities within the Hebrides; Gaelic speakers now constitute less than 2% of the total population, though state-sponsored revitalisation attempts have led to a growing community of second language speakers.

The mainland of Scotland is broadly divided into three regions: the Highlands, a mountainous region in the north and north-west; the Lowlands, a flatter plain across the centre of the country; and the Southern Uplands, a hilly region along the southern border. The Highlands are the most mountainous region of the British Isles and contain its highest peak, Ben Nevis, at 4,413 feet (1,345 m). The region also contains many lakes, called lochs; the term is also applied to the many saltwater inlets along the country's deeply indented western coastline. The geography of the many islands is varied. Some, such as Mull and Skye, are noted for their mountainous terrain, while the likes of Tiree and Coll are much flatter.

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Selected article

The Bell Rock Lighthouse, off the coast of Angus, Scotland, is the world's oldest surviving sea-washed lighthouse. It was built between 1807 and 1810 by Robert Stevenson on the Bell Rock (also known as Inchcape) in the North Sea, 11 miles (18 km) east of the Firth of Tay. Standing 35 metres (115 ft) tall, its light is visible from 35 statute miles (56 km) inland.

The masonry work on which the lighthouse rests was constructed to such a high standard that it has not been replaced or adapted in 200 years. The lamps and reflectors were replaced in 1843; the original ones are now in the lighthouse at Cape Bonavista, Newfoundland, where they are currently on display. The working of the lighthouse has been automated since 24 October 1988. The Northern Lighthouse Board, which has had its headquarters at 84 George Street in Edinburgh since 1832, remotely monitors the light.

The lighthouse previously operated in tandem with a shore station, the Bell Rock Signal Tower, built in 1813 at the mouth of Arbroath harbour. Today this building houses the Signal Tower Museum, a visitor centre that offers a detailed history of the lighthouse.

Because of the engineering challenges that were overcome to build the lighthouse, it has been described as one of the Seven Wonders of the Industrial World. (... Read the full article)

List of selected articles

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Selected quotes

Image 1

" ... the inarticulate expression of the inequalities of life ... "

— Jimmy Boyle (Speaking of crime)

" ... The proletarian has no country; all are equally prisons to him alike ... "

— Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham
Image 2

" ... Nae man can tether time nor tide ... "

— Robert Burns

" ... In all ages of the world, priests have been the enemies of liberty ... "

— David Hume
Image 3

" ... It is a vain hope to make people happy by politics ... "

— Thomas Carlyle

" ... We are never happy; we can only remember that we were so once ... "

— Alexander McCall Smith
Image 4

" ... He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp posts — for support rather than illumination ... "

— Andrew Lang

" ... We come here with no peaceful intent, but ready for battle, determined to avenge our wrongs and set our country free.
Let your masters come and attack us: we are ready to meet them beard to beard ... "

— William Wallace
Image 5

" ... History, a distillation of Rumour ... "

— Thomas Carlyle

" ... Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary ... "

— Robert Louis Stevenson
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" ... Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves ... "

— J. M. Barrie

" ... Speech is human, silence is divine, yet also brutish and dead: therefore we must learn both arts ... "

— Thomas Carlyle
Image 7

" ... There is only one word for aid that is without strings, and that word is blackmail ... "

— Colm Brogan

" ... It is unfortunate, considering that enthusiasm moves the world, that so few enthusiasts can be trusted to speak the truth ... "

— A. J. Balfour
Image 8

" ... He who has provoked the lash of wit, cannot complain that he smarts from it ... "

— J. M. Barrie speaking to George Bernard Shaw

" ... You think a wall as solid as the earth separates civilisation from barbarism. I tell you the division is a sheet of glass ... "

— John Buchan
Image 9

" ... Preparing youngsters for failure is easy; it’s preparing them for success that’s really difficult ... "

— Sir Alex Ferguson

" ... The battle for conservation will go on endlessly. It is part of the universal battle between right and wrong ... "

— John Muir
Image 10

" ... I could not be a traitor to Edward, for I was never his subject ... "

— William Wallace

" ... People in Scotland have a queer idea of the arts. They think you can be an artist in your spare time, though nobody expects you to be a spare-time dustman, engineer, lawyer or brain surgeon ... "

— Alasdair Gray
Image 11

" ... He's very clever, but sometimes his brains go to his head ... "

— Margot Asquith speaking of F. E. Smith

" ... When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe ... "

— John Muir
Image 12

" ... Maxims are the condensed good sense of nations ... "

— James Mackintosh

" ... Who thinks the law has anything to do with justice? It’s what we have because we can’t have justice ... "

— William McIlvanney
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" ... Instinct is untaught ability ... "

— Alexander Bain

" ... The great and good do not die even in this world. Enbalmed in books, their spirits walk abroad ... "

— Samuel Smiles
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" ... Men are immortal till their work is done ... "

— David Livingstone

" ... America would have been a poor show had it not been for the Scots ... "

— Andrew Carnegie
Image 15

" ... There are only two types of music: rock and roll ... "

— Alex Harvey

" ... A man willing to work, and unable to find work, is perhaps the saddest sight that Fortune's inequality exhibits under this sun ... "

— Thomas Carlyle
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" ... You ought to be roasted alive, though even then you would not be to my taste ... "

— J. M. Barrie speaking to George Bernard Shaw

" ... We are often unable to tell people what they need to know because they want to know something else ... "

— George MacDonald
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" ... All I've got against golf is that it takes you so far from the clubhouse ... "

— Eric Linklater

" ... I have always found that the man whose second thoughts are good is worth watching ... "

— J. M. Barrie
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" ... A ripple of laughter is worth an ocean of tears. To laugh is to be free of worry ... "

— Harry Gordon

" ... It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important ... "

— Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Image 19

" ... Celtic jerseys are not for second best, They don't shrink to fit inferior players ... "

— Jock Stein

" ... In every place, where there is any thing worthy of observation, there should be a short printed directory for strangers ... "

— James Boswell
Image 20

" ... You talked of Scotland as a lost cause and that is not true. Scotland is an unwon cause ... "

— John Steinbeck, in a letter to Mrs John F. Kennedy

" ... We live in a moment of history where change is so speeded up that we begin to see the present only when it is already disappearing ... "

— Ronald David Laing
Image 21

" ... No laws, however stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken sober ... "

— Samuel Smiles

" ... It is a great mortification to the vanity of man, that his utmost art and industry can never equal the meanest of nature's productions, either for beauty or value ... "

— David Hume
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" ... All government is a monopoly of violence ... "

— Sir Walter Scott

" ... In order to enjoy leisure, it is absolutely necessary it should be preceded by occupation ... "

— Hugh MacDiarmid
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" ... Old and young, we are all on our last cruise ... "

— Robert Louis Stevenson

" ... None of Nature's landscapes are ugly so long as they are wild ... "

— John Muir
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" ... Avarice, the spur of industry ... "

— David Hume

" ... No enemy is half so fatal as a friend estranged ... "

— John Davidson
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" ... Come along inside. We'll see if tea and buns can make the world a better place ... "

— Kenneth Grahame

" ... All speech, written or spoken, is a dead language, until it finds a willing and prepared hearer ... "

— Robert Louis Stevenson

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In the news

24 May 2025 – 2024–25 Scottish Cup: In association football, Aberdeen F.C. wins their 9th Scottish Cup and their first in 35 years after defeating 42-time winners Celtic F.C. 4–3 in the final on penalties after a 1–1 draw at Hampden Park in Glasgow. (BBC Sport)
16 April 2025 – Transgender rights in the United Kingdom, For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers: The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom rules that legal gender is based upon biological sex for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010. (BBC News)

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Selected biography

Cunninghame Graham, c. 1890.

Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham (24 May 1852 – 20 March 1936) was a Scottish politician, writer, journalist and adventurer. He was a Liberal Party Member of Parliament (MP); the first ever socialist member of the Parliament of the United Kingdom; a founder, and the first president, of the Scottish Labour Party; a founder of the National Party of Scotland in 1928; and the first president of the Scottish National Party in 1934.

Cunninghame Graham was the eldest son of Major William Bontine of the Renfrew Militia and formerly a Cornet in the Scots Greys with whom he served in Ireland. His mother was the Hon. Anne Elizabeth Elphinstone-Fleeming, daughter of Admiral Charles Elphinstone-Fleeming of Cumbernauld and a Spanish noblewoman, Doña Catalina Paulina Alessandro de Jiménez, who reputedly, along with her second husband, Admiral James Katon, heavily influenced Cunninghame Graham's upbringing. Thus the first language Cunninghame Graham learned was his mother's maternal tongue, Spanish. (... Read the full article)

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Image 1
Eilean Donan Castle

The castle on Eilean Donan (Scottish Gaelic: Eilean Donnain), a small tidal island where three sea lochs meet, Loch Duich, Loch Long and Loch Alsh, in the western Highlands.

Photo credit: Gillfoto
Image 2
Arbroath Harbour

Arbroath or Aberbrothock (Scottish Gaelic: Obair Bhrothaig) is a former royal burgh on the North Sea coast, around 16 miles (25.7 km) ENE of Dundee and 45 miles (72.4 km) SSW of Aberdeen. It is the largest town in the council area of Angus. and has a population of 22,785.

Photo credit: Karen Vernon
Image 3
The Forth Bridge

The Forth Bridge is a cantilever railway bridge over the Firth of Forth. It was opened on 4 March 1890, and spans a total length of 2,528.7 metres (8,296 ft). It is often called the Forth Rail Bridge or Forth Railway Bridge to distinguish it from the Forth Road Bridge.

Photo credit: George Gastin
Image 4
The supply boat Good Shepherd III is tied up on the jetty on Fair Isle, 1974

Fair Isle (from Old Norse Frjóey) (Scottish Gaelic: Eileann nan Geansaidh) is an island off Scotland, lying around halfway between Shetland and the Orkney Islands. The most remote inhabited island in the United Kingdom, it is famous for its bird observatory and a traditional style of knitting.

Photo credit: Julian Paren
Image 5
Detail of the V&A museum from the west with the Tay Bridge beyond

Detail of the V&A museum, Dundee from the west with the Tay Bridge beyond.

Photo credit: Richard Szwejkowski
Image 6
Loch Lomond viewed from Balmaha

Loch Lomond viewed from Balmaha

Photo credit: Andy Farrington
Image 7
Plockton

Plockton (Scottish Gaelic: Am Ploc/Ploc Loch Aillse) is a picturesque settlement in the Highlands on the shores of Loch Carron. It faces east, away from the prevailing winds, which together with the North Atlantic Drift, gives it a mild climate, allowing palm trees (actually cabbage trees) to grow.

Photo credit: Arthur Bruce
Image 8
Evening view across Calton Hill towards the Castle

Evening view from Calton Hill towards an illuminated Edinburgh Castle with the Bank of Scotland headquarters and the Balmoral Hotel illuminated in the intermediate foreground. The sillhouettes of the Scott Monument and the tall gothic spire of the Hub are both prominent in the frame.

Photo credit: Chris Fleming
Image 9
Meall a' Bhùiridh and Lochan na h-Achlaise as seen from the A82 road driving towards Glen Coe

Meall a' Bhùiridh and Lochan na h-Achlaise on Rannoch Moor viewed from the A82 en route to Glen Coe in the HIghlands..

Photo credit: Fuzzy14
Image 10
Hopetoun House

Hopetoun House is the traditional residence of the Earl of Hopetoun (later the Marquess of Linlithgow). It was built 1699-1701, designed by William Bruce. It was then hugely extended from 1721 by William Adam until his death in 1748 being one of his most notable projects. The parklands in which it lies were laid out in 1725, also by William Adam.

Photo credit: George Gastin
Image 11
Glasgow Necropolis

The Glasgow Necropolis is a Victorian cemetery in Glasgow. It sits on a hill above, and to the east of, St. Mungo's Cathedral. It was conceived as a Père Lachaise for Glasgow, and subsequently established by the Merchants' House of Glasgow in 1831. Fifty thousand individuals have been buried in approximately 3500 tombs.

Photo credit: Finlay McWalter
Image 12
The parliament building viewed from Salisbury Crags

The Scottish Parliament Building (Scottish Gaelic: Pàrlamaid na h-Alba, Scots: Scots Pairlament Biggin) is the home of the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood, within the UNESCO World Heritage Site in central Edinburgh. It was designed by Enric Miralles, the Catalan architect,.and has won a number of awards, including an award at the VIII Biennial of Spanish Architecture, the RIAS Andrew Doolan Award for Architecture, and the 2005 Stirling Prize, the UK's most prestigious architecture award.

Photo credit: Photo Credit: Wangi
Image 13
Bealach na Bà

Bealach na Bà is a historic pass through the mountains of the Applecross peninsula, in Wester Ross in the Scottish Highlands—and the name of a famous twisting, single-track mountain road through the pass and mountains. The road is one of few in the Scottish Highlands that is engineered similarly to roads through the great mountain passes in the Alps, with very tight hairpin bends that switch back and forth up the hillside.

Photo credit: Stefan Krause
Image 14
The Riverside Museum on the banks of the river Clyde.

The Riverside Museum on the River Clyde in Glasgow, designed by Zaha Hadid Architects. The new museum now houses the Glasgow Museum of Transport. Berthed next to it is the Clyde-built sailing ship the Glenlee..

Photo credit: Neil Williamson
Image 15
Side view of Mons Meg

Mons Meg is a medieval bombard in the collection of the Royal Armouries, on loan to Historic Environment Scotland and located at Edinburgh Castle. It was built in 1449 on the orders of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, and sent by him as a gift to James II, King of Scots, in 1454. The bombard was employed in sieges until the middle of the 16th century

Photo credit: Lee Sie
Image 16
Glasgow University main building with Dumgoyne and the Campsie Fells in the background

Autumnal view of Glasgow University main building with Dumgoyne and the Campsie Fells in the background

Photo credit: Ian Dick
Image 17
Tobermory waterfront, isle of Mull

Tobermoray (Scottish Gaelic: Tobar Mhoire) is the capital of, and the only burgh on, the Isle of Mull in the Inner Hebrides. It is located in the northeastern part of the island, near the northern entrance of the Sound of Mull. The town was founded as a fishing port in 1788, its layout based on the designs of Dumfriesshire engineer Thomas Telford.

Photo credit: Lukas von Daeniken
Image 18
Edinburgh Castle

Edinburgh Castle is a fortress which dominates the skyline of the city of Edinburgh, from its position atop the volcanic Castle Rock. Human habitation of the site is dated back as far as the 9th century BC, although the nature of early settlement is unclear. There has been a royal castle here since at least the reign of King David in the 12th century, and the site continued to be a royal residence until the Union of the Crowns in 1603.

Photo credit: Saffron_Blaze
Image 19
Kyle of Durness

Durness (Scottish Gaelic: Diùirnis) is a huge but remote parish in the northwestern Highlands, encompassing all the land between the Moine to the East (separating it from Tongue parish) and the Gualin to the West (separating it from Eddrachilis).

Photo credit: Neil Booth
Image 20
The Room de Luxe at the Willow Tearooms

The Willow Tearooms are tearooms at 217 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow, designed by internationally renowned architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh, which opened for business in October 1903.

Photo credit: Dave souza
Image 21
Coire nan Lochan on the southern side of Glen Coe

Glen Coe ((Scottish Gaelic: Gleann Comhann) is a glen in the Highlands. It lies in the southern part of the Lochaber committee area of Highland Council, and was formerly part of the county of Argyll.

Photo credit: Gil.cavalcanti
Image 22
St Ninian's Isle

The tied island of St Ninian's Isle is joined to the Shetland Mainland by the largest tombolo in the UK.

Photo credit: ThoWi
Image 23
Mousa Broch, Shetland Islands

A broch is an Iron Age drystone hollow-walled structure of a type found only in Scotland. Brochs belong to the classification "complex atlantic roundhouse" devised by Scottish archaeologists in the 1980s. Their origin is a matter of some controversy.

Photo credit: Otter
Image 24
Reaper under full sail.

Reaper is a restored historic Fifie herring drifter which is registered by the National Historic Ships Committee as part of the Core Collection of historic vessels in the UK, and currently operates as a museum ship.

Photo credit: Scottish Fisheries Museum Boats Club
Image 25
Aerial view of Pennan village

Pennan (Scots: Peenan) is a small village in Aberdeenshire] consisting of a small harbour and a single row of homes. Pennan became famous for representing the fictional village of Ferness, being one of the main locations for the film Local Hero.

Photo credit: Tadpolefarm

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Did You Know...

Help available

... that the uncommon Florida lichen species Gyalectidium yahriae was named after Rebecca Yahr of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh in Scotland?
... that the construction of the Jubilee Bridge was featured in the 1982 documentary about the A9 road reconstruction?
... that the Scottish surgeon John Blair was the only dux of his high school to receive his gold medal in the presence of his wife and child?
... that John Neilson, a Scottish immigrant to Lower Canada, became a major publisher and bookseller, and was reportedly "the largest consumer of paper" in the country?
... that the 4,000-year-old Ravenswood standing stone now lies in a cul-de-sac in a 1970s Scottish housing estate?
... that a lane behind a tenement in Edinburgh is decorated as a Wild West town?
... that the Aesculapian Club, founded in Edinburgh in 1773, still meets twice a year?
... that the 1830 abandonment of Chipewyan woman Matooskie by her Scottish husband was eventually settled with a dowry payment of £200?

More did you know items

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Scotland Related WikiProjects and Task forces
	WikiProject Clans of Scotland	talk
	WikiProject Medieval Scotland	talk
	WikiProject Scottish Castles	talk
	WikiProject Scottish Islands	talk
	WikiProject Scottish Television	talk
	WikiProject Transport in Scotland	talk
	WikiProject Edinburgh	talk
	Fife task force	talk
	Scottish Gaelic task force	talk

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