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 Schiehallion experiment was an 18th-century experiment to determine the mean density of the Earth. Funded by a grant from the Royal Society, it was conducted in the summer of 1774 around the Scottish mountain of Schiehallion, Perthshire. The experiment involved measuring the tiny deflection of the vertical due to the gravitational attraction of a nearby mountain. Schiehallion was considered the ideal location after a search for candidate mountains, thanks to its isolation and almost symmetrical shape. The experiment had previously been considered, but rejected, by Isaac Newton as a practical demonstration of his theory of gravitation; however, a team of scientists, notably Nevil Maskelyne, the Astronomer Royal, was convinced that the effect would be detectable and undertook to conduct the experiment. The deflection angle depended on the relative densities and volumes of the Earth and the mountain: if the density and volume of Schiehallion could be ascertained, then so could the density of the Earth. Once this was known, it would in turn yield approximate values for those of the other planets, their moons, and the Sun, previously known only in terms of their relative ratios. (... Read the full article)

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Selected quotes

Image 1

" ... We think the world is ours for ever, but we are little more than squatters ... "

— Alexander McCall Smith

" ... A custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black, stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless ... "

— James VI King of Scots (on Tobacco)
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

" ... A scot is a man who keeps the Sabbath and everything else he can lay his hands on ... "

— Chic Murray

" ... Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man; but for one man who can stand prosperity, there are a hundred that will stand adversity ... "

— Thomas Carlyle
Image 4

" ... A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence ... "

— David Hume

" ... The surest way to get a thing in this life is to be prepared for doing without it, to the exclusion even of hope ... "

— Jane Welsh Carlyle
Image 5

" ... 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 6

" ... We look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilisation ... "

— Voltaire

" ... Many a clever boy is flogged into a dunce and many an original composition corrected into mediocrity ... "

— Sir Walter Scott
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" ... Science is the greatest antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition ... "

— Adam Smith

" ... William Wallace sheds as bright a glory upon his valorous nation as ever was shed upon their country by the greatest men of Greece or Rome ... "

— Giuseppe Garibaldi
Image 8

" ... Biography: One of the new terrors of death ... "

— John Arbuthnot

" ... It requires a surgical operation to get a joke well into a Scotch understanding ... "

— Sydney Smith
Image 9

" ... Fashion as King is sometimes a very stupid ruler ... "

— Eric Temple Bell

" ... There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement ... "

— Lord Kelvin, address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1900
Image 10

" ... History is the essence of innumerable biographies ... "

— Thomas Carlyle

" ... for, as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule.
It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom – for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself ... "

— Declaration of Arbroath
Image 11

" ... Of all vices, drinking is the most incompatible with greatness ... "

— Sir Walter Scott

" ... The hardest thing in life is to know which bridge to cross and which to burn ... "

— David Russell
Image 12

" ... No man can become rich without himself enriching others ... "

— Andrew Carnegie

" ... The old cathedrals are good, but the great blue dome that hangs over everything is better ... "

— Thomas Carlyle
Image 13

" ... 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 14

" ... Books are a finer world within the world ... "

— Alexander Smith

" ... All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education ... "

— Sir Walter Scott
Image 15

" ... A well-written Life is almost as rare as a well-spent one ... "

— Thomas Carlyle

" ... Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I’m very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that ... "

— Bill Shankly
Image 16

" ... Biography should be written by an acute enemy ... "

— A. J. Balfour

" ... We live in a Newtonian world of Einsteinian physics ruled by Frankenstein logic ... "

— David Russell
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" ... Minds are like parachutes. They only function when they are open ... "

— Sir James Dewar

" ... The world is neither Scottish, English, nor Irish, neither French, Dutch, nor Chinese, but human ... "

— Sir Alexander Gray
Image 18

" ... Beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates them ... "

— David Hume

" ... We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery ... "

— Samuel Smiles
Image 19

" ... Every man has a sane spot somewhere ... "

— Robert Louis Stevenson

" ... You cannot force ideas. Successful ideas are the result of slow growth ... "

— Alexander Graham Bell
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" ... I must follow them. I am their leader ... "

— Bonar Law

" ... None can destroy Scotland, save Scotland's self ... "

— Lord Belhaven, opposing the union of 1707
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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
Image 22

" ... Golf is an indispensable adjunct to high society ... "

— Andrew Carnegie

" ... We are bought and sold for English gold. Such a parcel of rogues in a nation ... "

— Robert Burns
Image 23

" ... I have forgot a great deal more than most other men know ... "

— Lord Monboddo

" ... I tell you truly, liberty is the best of things; never live under the halter of slavery ... "

— William Wallace
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" ... Few delights can equal the presence of one whom we trust utterly ... "

— George MacDonald

" ... The real price of every thing, what every thing really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it ... "

— Adam Smith
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" ... 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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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

Carnegie, c. 1913

Andrew Carnegie (English: /kɑːrˈnɛɡi/ kar-NEG-ee, Scots: [kɑrˈnɛːɡi]; November 25, 1835 – August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late-19th century and became one of the richest Americans in history.

He became a leading philanthropist in the United States, Great Britain, and the British Empire. During the last 18 years of his life, he gave away around $350 million (equivalent to $10.9 billion in 2024), almost 90 percent of his fortune, to charities, foundations and universities. His 1889 article proclaiming "The Gospel of Wealth" called on the rich to use their wealth to improve society, expressed support for progressive taxation and an estate tax, and stimulated a wave of philanthropy.

Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland. He immigrated to what is now Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States with his parents in 1848 at the age of 12. Carnegie started work in a cotton mill and later as a telegrapher. By the 1860s he had investments in railroads, railroad sleeping cars, bridges, and oil derricks. He accumulated further wealth as a bond salesman, raising money for American enterprise in Europe. He built Pittsburgh's Carnegie Steel Company, which he sold to J. P. Morgan in 1901 for $303,450,000 (equal to $11,469,200,000 today); it formed the basis of the U.S. Steel Corporation. After selling Carnegie Steel, he surpassed John D. Rockefeller as the richest American of the time.

Carnegie devoted the remainder of his life to large-scale philanthropy, with special emphasis on building local libraries, working for world peace, education, and scientific research. He funded Carnegie Hall in New York City, the Peace Palace in The Hague, founded the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Carnegie Institution for Science, Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, Carnegie Hero Fund, Carnegie Mellon University, and the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, among others. (... Read the full article)

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Image 1
Blackrock cottage, Rannoch Moor

A view of Blackrock Cottage on Rannoch Moor with Buachaille Etive Mor in the background.

Photo credit: Andrewmckie
Image 2
The Wallace Monument

The Wallace Monument is a sandstone tower, built in the Victorian Gothic style. It stands on the summit of Abbey Craig, a volcanic crag above Cambuskenneth Abbey, from which Wallace was said to have watched the gathering of the army of English king Edward I, just before the Battle of Stirling Bridge.

Photo credit: Ray Mann
Image 3
Reconstructed crannóg on Loch Tay

A crannóg (pronounced /krəˈno:g/ or /ˈkrɑno:g/ or /ˈkranag/) is an ancient artificial island or natural island found in Scotland and Ireland, used for a settlement. The name may also refer to a wooden platform erected on shallow loch floors.

Photo credit: Dave Morris
Image 4
The Old Man of Storr

The Old Man of Storr is a rock pinnacle, the remains of an ancient volcanic plug. It is part of The Storr, a rocky hill overlooking the Sound of Raasay on the Trotternish peninsula of the Isle of Skye.

Photo credit: Wojsy
Image 5
Lighthouse on the Bass Rock, Firth of Forth

Lighthouse on the Bass Rock, an island in the outer part of the Firth of Forth, home to the world's largest colony of northern gannets.

Photo credit: Ben Clarke
Image 6
The Dunmore Pineapple, a folly in Dunmore Park, near Airth in Stirlingshire

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The Dunmore Pineapple, a folly in Dunmore Park, near Airth in Stirlingshire

Photo credit: George.Gastin
Image 7
The Queens View, Loch Tummel

Loch Tummel (Scottish Gaelic: Loch Teimhil) is a long, narrow loch, 7 kilometres north west of Pitlochry in Perth and Kinross. A well known view over the loch and the surrounding countryside (with Schiehallion in the background) is the 'Queen's View' from the north shore, which Queen Victoria made famous in 1866.

Photo credit: Paul Hermans
Image 8
View of Canisp and Suilven from nearby Clachtoll

Canisp and Suilven seen from the coastal fishing and crofting village of Clachtoll in Sutherland county, on the north western edge of Scotland.

Photo credit: Louis_Daillencourt
Image 9
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 10
Aerial viewof the bridge over the River Garry, Perthshire

Autumnal colours seen in an aerial view of the bridge over the River Garry, Perthshire.

Photo credit: Ian Dick
Image 11
36-inch telescope at the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh

36-inch telescope at the Royal Observatory on Blackford Hill, Edinburgh, the location of the UK Astronomy Technology Centre (UK ATC).

Photo credit: Science and Technology Facilities Council
Image 12
The Falkirk Wheel.

The Falkirk Wheel, named after the nearby town of Falkirk, is a rotating boat lift connecting the Forth and Clyde Canal with the Union Canal. The wheel raises boats by 24 metres (79 ft).

Photo credit: User:SeanMack
Image 13
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 14
Comon seal basking on rocks

A common seal (Phoca vitulina) seen basking on rocks off Lismore, Argyll.

Photo credit: Sharp Photography
Image 15
Thistle flower head

Thistle is the common name of a group of flowering plants characterised by leaves with sharp prickles on the margins, mostly in the family Asteraceae. In the language of flowers, the thistle (like the burr) is an ancient Celtic symbol of nobility of character as well as of birth, for the wounding or provocation of a thistle yields punishment.

Photo credit: Fir0002
Image 16
John Knox's House, Edinburgh

John Knox House, popularly known as John Knox's House, is a historic house in Edinburgh, Scotland, reputed to have been owned and lived in by Protestant reformer John Knox during the 16th century.

Photo credit: Kim Traynor
Image 17
Satellite image of Scotland

The geography of Scotland is highly varied, from rural lowlands to barren uplands, and from large cities to uninhabited islands. Aside from the mainland, Scotland is surrounded by 790 islands encompassing the major archipelagoes of the Shetland Islands, Orkney Islands and the Outer Hebrides.

Photo credit: NASA
Image 18
The Black Watch War Memorial on the Mound in Edinburgh.

The Black Watch War Memorial, at the corner of Market Street and North Bank Street on the Mound in Edinburgh.

Photo credit: AdMeskens
Image 19
Commando Memorial above Spean Bridge

The Commando Memorial is a monument in Lochaber, dedicated to the men of the original British Commando Forces Situated around a mile from Spean Bridge, it was erected during World War II and unveiled in 1952 by the Queen Mother. The 17 foot high Memorial was designed by Scott Sutherland from Dundee College of Art in 1949 and comprises three gigantic bronze figures clad in battledress, woollen caps and climbing boots looking across the Great Glen.

Photo credit: P A Woodward
Image 20
Cells of Life, a landform by Charles Jencks at Jupiter Artland

Cells of Life, a landform by Charles Jencks at Jupiter Artland, a contemporary sculpture park and art gallery outside the city of Edinburgh.

Photo credit: Allan Pollok-Morris
Image 21
The gates of the Bruichladdich Distillery

The Bruichladdich distillery is a distillery on the Rhinns of the isle of Islay in Scotland. The distillery produces mainly single malt Scotch whisky, but has also offered artisanal gin.

Photo credit: Bdcl1881
Image 22
The second chamber of the Smoo Cave, Durness in Sutherland, Scotland

The second chamber of the Smoo Cave, Durness in Sutherland.

Photo credit: Florian_Fuchs
Image 23
RRS Discovery docked at Dundee

RRS Discovery was the last traditional wooden three-masted ship to be built in Britain. Designed for Antarctic research, she was launched as a Royal Research Ship (RRS) in 1901. Her first mission was the British National Antarctic Expedition, carrying Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton on their first, successful journey to the Antarctic, known as the Discovery Expedition. She is now the centrepiece of a visitor attraction in her home, Dundee.

Photo credit: Mactographer
Image 24
Hill House, Helensburgh

Hill House in Helensburgh, Scotland, was created by architects and designers Charles and Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh. The house was built in a Modern Style way.

Photo credit: JeremyA
Image 25
Wemyss Bay railway station.

Wemyss Bay railway station is a railway station on the Inverclyde Line. Located in the village of Wemyss Bay, Inverclyde. The station incorporates the terminal for the Caledonian MacBrayne ferry connecting the mainland to Rothesay on the Isle of Bute.

Photo credit: wilm

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Did You Know...

Help available

... that the Scottish Register of Tartans has registered district tartans for Australia as a whole, and also a state district tartan for each of Australia's six states?
... that Thorpe's secluded hills provided refuge from Scottish raiders and English Civil War troops?
... that Robert de Ogle captured five Scottish knights near Newcastle in 1341 and received royal licence to crenellate his property?
... that today the Bishop of Edinburgh plays a ceremonial role at the coronation of Charles III and Camilla as a representative of the Walker Trustees?
... that contrary to Shakespeare's play, Macbeth was not killed during the Battle of Dunsinane?
... that the New York Yankees were first named after a Scottish regiment?
... that Prince Philip was the first member of the British royal family to fly in a helicopter?
... that the 1830 abandonment of Chipewyan woman Matooskie by her Scottish husband was eventually settled with a dowry payment of £200?

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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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