Portal:Scotland

The Scotland Portal

Main Page

Selected articles 1

Selected articles 2

Selected biographies

Selected quotes

Selected pictures

Featured Content

Categories & Topics

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.

Refresh with new selections below (purge)

Selected article

Scotland in the modern era, from the end of the Jacobite risings and beginnings of industrialisation in the 18th century to the present day, has played a major part in the economic, military and political history of the United Kingdom, British Empire and Europe, while recurring issues over the status of Scotland, its status and identity have dominated political debate.

Scotland made a major contribution to the intellectual life of Europe, particularly in the Enlightenment, producing major figures including the economist Adam Smith, philosophers Francis Hutcheson and David Hume, and scientists William Cullen, Joseph Black and James Hutton. In the 19th century major figures included James Watt, James Clerk Maxwell, Lord Kelvin and Sir Walter Scott. Scotland's economic contribution to the Empire and the Industrial Revolution included its banking system and the development of cotton, coal mining, shipbuilding and an extensive railway network. Industrialisation and changes to agriculture and society led to depopulation and clearances of the largely rural highlands, migration to the towns and mass emigration, where Scots made a major contribution to the development of countries including the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

In the 20th century, Scotland played a major role in the British and allied effort in the two world wars and began to suffer a sharp industrial decline, going through periods of considerable political instability. The decline was particularly acute in the second half of the 20th century, but was compensated for to a degree by the development of an extensive oil industry, technological manufacturing and a growing service sector. This period also increasing debates about the place of Scotland within the United Kingdom, the rise of the Scottish National Party and after a referendum in 1999 the establishment of a devolved Scottish Parliament. (... Read the full article)

List of selected articles

More articles (1-60)
More articles (61-105)

Selected quotes

Image 1

" ... 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
Image 2

" ... 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 3

" ... 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 4

" ... Before anything else, preparation is the key to success ... "

— Alexander Graham Bell

" ... A good pun may be admitted among the smaller excellencies of lively conversation ... "

— James Boswell
Image 5

" ... The Eleventh Commandment: Thou shalt not be found out ... "

— George Whyte-Melville

" ... For God's sake give me the young man who has brains enough to make a fool of himself ... "

— Robert Louis Stevenson
Image 6

" ... God help England if she had no Scots to think for her ... "

— George Bernard Shaw

" ... We have all taken risks in the making of war. Isn’t it time that we should take risks to make peace? ... "

— Ramsay MacDonald
Image 7

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

— Thomas Carlyle

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

— Robert Louis Stevenson
Image 8

" ... 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 9

" ... I fear I have nothing original in me excepting original sin ... "

— Thomas Campbell

" ... Life is a waste of time. Time is a waste of life. Get wasted all the time and you'll have the time of your life ... "

— Billy Connolly
Image 10

" ... Courage is the thing. All goes if courage goes ... "

— J. M. Barrie

" ... I am not here, then, as the accused; I am here as the accuser of capitalism dripping with blood from head to foot ... "

— John Maclean from his famous "speech from the dock"
Image 11

" ... 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 12

" ... 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
Image 13

" ... My theory is that all of Scottish cuisine is based on a dare ... "

— Mike Myers

" ... A man may well be condemned, not for doing something, but for doing nothing ... "

— William Barclay
Image 14

" ... 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 15

" ... The cruellest lies are often told in silence ... "

— Robert Louis Stevenson

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

— Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Image 16

" ... Politically correct is the language of cowardice ... "

— Billy Connolly

" ... It is never difficult to distinguish between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine ... "

— P. G. Wodehouse
Image 17

" ... Custom, then, is the great guide of human life ... "

— David Hume

" ... Perpetual devotion to what a man calls his business, is only to be sustained by perpetual neglect of many other things ... "

— Robert Louis Stevenson
Image 18

" ... Doctors, like minicab drivers, are the other idiots to whom we trust our lives ... "

— James Kennaway

" ... When shall I see Scotland again? Never shall I forget the happy days I passed there amidst odious smells, barbarous sounds, bad suppers, excellent hearts and the most enlightened and cultivated understandings ... "

— Sydney Smith
Image 19

" ... A man with God is always in the majority ... "

— John Knox

" ... Never ascribe to an opponent motives meaner than your own ... "

— J. M. Barrie
Image 20

" ... I'm not young enough to know everything ... "

— J.M.Barrie

" ... When one door closes another door opens, but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us ... "

— Alexander Graham Bell
Image 21

" ... The worst of being a doctor is that one's mistakes matter so much ... "

— Elsie Inglis

" ... The ideal board of directors should be made up of three men - two dead and the other dying ... "

— Tommy Docherty
Image 22

" ... The Scots are steadfast - not their clime ... "

— Thomas Crawford

" ... We do have the greatest fans in the world but I’ve never seen a fan score a goal ... "

— Jock Stein
Image 23

" ... Facts are stubborn things ... "

— Tobias Smollett

" ... History does not repeat itself. Historians repeat each other ... "

— A. J. Balfour
Image 24

" ... 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 25

" ... 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

More quotes

In the news

24 May 2025 – 2024–25 Scottish Cup: 2025 Scottish Cup final; In association football, Aberdeen F.C. win their 9th Scottish Cup and the 1st in 35 years, after beating 42-time winners Celtic F.C. 4–3 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)

More current events

Selected biography

Portrait by Herbert Rose Barraud, 1892

Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM (/ˈbæri/; 9 May 1860 – 19 June 1937) was a Scottish novelist and playwright, best remembered as the creator of Peter Pan. He was born and educated in Scotland and then moved to London, where he wrote several successful novels and plays. There he met the Llewelyn Davies boys, who inspired him to write about a baby boy who has magical adventures in Kensington Gardens (first included in Barrie's 1902 adult novel The Little White Bird), then to write Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, a 1904 West End "fairy play" about an ageless boy and an ordinary girl named Wendy who have adventures in the fantasy setting of Neverland.

Although he continued to write successfully, Peter Pan overshadowed his other work, and is credited with popularising the name Wendy. Barrie unofficially adopted the Davies boys following the deaths of their parents. Barrie was made a baronet by George V on 14 June 1913, and a member of the Order of Merit in the 1922 New Year Honours. Before his death, he gave the rights to the Peter Pan works to Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London, which continues to benefit from them. (... Read the full article)

List of selected biograpghies

More biographies

Selected picture

Image 1
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 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
A bank of trees shrouded in fog on the northern shores of Loch Tay

A bank of trees shrouded in fog on the northern shores of Loch Tay.

Photo credit: Michal Klajban
Image 4
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 5
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 6
Glenfinnan Viaduct

Glenfinnan Viaduct is a railway viaduct on the West Highland Line in Glenfinnan, Lochaber, Highland. It was built between 1897 and 1901. Located at the top of Loch Shiel in the West Highlands, the viaduct overlooks the Glenfinnan Monument and the waters of Loch Shiel.

Photo credit: Nicolas17
Image 7
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 8

The Devils Pulpit in Finnich Glen, a short, steep glen in Stirlingshire. It was used to depict the fictional St Ninian's Spring in the time-traveling romance TV series Outlander.

Photo credit: Gaverlaa
Image 9
Freezing temperatures in Braemar

Braemar is a village in Aberdeenshire, around 58 miles (93 km) west of Aberdeen in the Highlands. Sitting at an altitude of 339 metres (1,112 ft), Braemar is the third coldest low lying place in the UK, after the villages of Dalwhinnie and Leadhills. It has twice entered the UK Weather Records with the lowest ever UK temperature of -27.2^oC, on 11 February 1895, and 10 January 1982.

Photo credit: Paul Chapman
Image 10
Eilean Glas lighthouse

Eilean Glas Lighthouse, built by engineer Thomas Smith, was one of the original four lights to be commissioned by the Commissioners of the Northern Lights and the first in the Hebrides (the others were Kinnaird Head, Mull of Kintyre and North Ronaldsay).

Photo credit: Richard Baker
Image 11
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 12
Iona Village

Iona (Scottish Gaelic: Ì Chaluim Chille) is a small island in the Inner Hebrides off the western coast of Scotland. It was a centre of Celtic Christianity for four centuries and is today renowned for its tranquility and natural beauty. It is a popular tourist destination.

Photo credit: Graham Proud
Image 13
View of Oban and harbour

Oban (Scottish Gaelic: An t-Òban) (meaning "The Little Bay") is a resort town within the council area of Argyll and Bute. Oban Bay is a near perfect horseshoe bay, protected by the island of Kerrera, and beyond Kerrera is Mull. To the north is the long low island of Lismore, and the mountains of Morvern and Ardgour.

Photo credit: Josi
Image 14

Traigh Iar (Horgabost beach), Harris, which is part of Lewis and Harris, the largest island in the Outer Hebrides, .

Photo credit: Gordon Hatton
Image 15
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 16
A walker slacklining at the Old Man of Hoy

Walker Alex Schulz slacklining at the Old Man of Hoy, a 449-foot (137-metre) sea stack on Hoy, part of the Orkney archipelago .

Photo credit: AlexSchulz91
Image 17
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 18
The Scott Monument

The Scott Monument is a Victorian Gothic monument to Scottish author Sir Walter Scott (not to be confused with the National Monument). It stands in Princes Street Gardens in Edinburgh.

Photo credit: Schatir
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
Crail Harbour

Crail is a former royal burgh in the East Neuk of Fife. Built around a harbour, it has a particular wealth of vernacular buildings from the 17th to early 19th centuries, many restored by the National Trust for Scotland, and is a favourite subject for artists.

Photo credit: S.moeller
Image 21
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 22
St John's cross in the Abbey museum

One of the oldest and most important religious centres in western Europe, Iona Abbey is considered the point of origin for the spread of Christianity throughout Scotland. Iona Abbey is located on the Isle of Iona, just off the Isle of Mull on the West Coast.

Photo credit: Dennis Turner
Image 23
View over Edinburgh, with the Dugald Stewart Monument in the foreground

Calton Hill is a hill in central Edinburgh, just to the east of the New Town. The hill is home to several iconic monuments and buildings: the National Monument, Nelson's Monument, the Dugald Stewart Monument, the Royal High School, the Robert Burns Monument, the Political Martyrs' Monument and the City Observatory.

Photo credit: Andrewyuill
Image 24
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 25
Statue of Robert the Bruce, Bannockburn

Robert the Bruce statue at the Bannockburn Visitor Centre, Bannockburn, Stirling, is a 1964 work by Pilkington Jackson. The bronze sculpture depicts Robert the Bruce wielding an axe and on a war horse.

Photo credit: Martin Kraft

More pictures

Did You Know...

Help available

... that William of Littlington opposed the division of England and Scotland into two Carmelite provinces in 1303, was excommunicated, and did four years' penance in Paris?
... that the Aesculapian Club, founded in Edinburgh in 1773, still meets twice a year?
... that Scottish painter Gordon Coutts left Australia without paying maintenance to his estranged wife, but was arrested in New Zealand?
... that background research for Dujanah included interviews with Muslim apostates and a Scottish veteran of Afghanistan?
... that buddleia grows from the exterior of the Church Street School swimming pool in Glasgow?
... 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 former Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson said that she would swim in Loch Ness naked if the SNP won more than 50 seats at the 2019 United Kingdom general election?
... that because of violent reactions – such as Jenny Geddes's on 23 July 1637 – to a Scottish prayer book, Walter Whitford kept loaded pistols visible to his congregants while using the book?

More did you know items

Get involved

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

For editor resources and to collaborate with other editors on improving Wikipedia's Scotland-related articles, see WikiProject Scotland.

To get involved in helping to improve Wikipedia's Scotland related content, please consider doing some of the following tasks or joining one or more of the associated Wikiprojects:

Visit the Scottish Wikipedians' notice board and help to write new Scotland-related articles, and expand and improve existing ones.
Visit Wikipedia:WikiProject Scotland/Assessment, and help out by assessing unrated Scottish articles.
Add the Project Banner to Scottish articles around Wikipedia.
Participate in WikiProject Scotland's Peer Review, including responding to PR requests and nominating Scottish articles.
Help nominate and select new content for the Scotland portal.

Do you have a question about The Scotland Portal that you can't find the answer to?
Post a question on the Talk Page or consider asking it at the Wikipedia reference desk.