Portal:Scotland
-
The Burns Cottage, South Ayrshire. -
Caledonian MacBrayne ferry MV Clansman sailing past the Isle of Mull. -
The three major bridges crossing the Firth of Forth. -
The Torridon Hills. -
Reflections at Loch an Dubh Lochain, Knoydart.
_(cropped).jpg){kind=small}
| Main Page | Selected articles 1 | Selected articles 2 | Selected biographies | Selected quotes | Selected pictures | Featured Content | Categories & Topics |
Introduction
 |
|
|
| ||
Scotland (Scots: Scotland; Scottish Gaelic: Alba) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and adjacent islands, principally in the archipelagos of the Hebrides and the Northern Isles. In 2022, the country's population was about 5.4 million. Its capital city is Edinburgh, whilst Glasgow is the largest and the most populous of the cities in the country. Scotland borders England to the south, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, the North Sea to the east, and the Irish Sea to the south-west. In the Scottish Parliament, 129 members represent 73 constituencies. The Scottish Government is the executive arm of the devolved government, headed by the first minister, who chairs the cabinet and is responsible for government policy and international engagement.
The Kingdom of Scotland emerged as a sovereign state in the 9th century. Independence from England was maintained partly through an alliance with France. 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 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, although 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 Tiree and Coll are flatter.
Selected article
Pan Am Flight 103 was a regularly scheduled Pan Am transatlantic flight from Frankfurt to Detroit via a stopover in London and another in New York City. Shortly after 19:00 on 21 December 1988, the Boeing 747 Clipper Maid of the Seas was destroyed by a bomb while flying over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, killing all 243 passengers and 16 crew aboard. Large sections of the aircraft crashed in a residential street in Lockerbie, killing 11 residents. With a total of 270 fatalities, the event, which became known as the Lockerbie bombing, is the deadliest terrorist attack in the history of the United Kingdom and one of the deadliest terror attacks in European history.
Following a three-year joint investigation by Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), arrest warrants were issued for two Libyan Mukhabarat el-Jamahiriya officers in 1991. After protracted negotiations and United Nations sanctions, in 1999, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi handed over the two men for trial at Camp Zeist, the Netherlands. In 2001, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, was found guilty of 270 counts of murder in connection with the bombing, and was sentenced to life imprisonment. His co-accused, Lamin Khalifah Fhimah, was acquitted. In 2009, Megrahi was released by the Scottish Government on compassionate grounds after being diagnosed with prostate cancer. He died in 2012 as the only person to be convicted for the attack.
In 2003, Gaddafi paid more than US$2 billion in compensation to the families of the victims of the Lockerbie bombing. Although Gaddafi maintained that he had never personally given the order for the attack, acceptance of Megrahi's status as a government employee was used to connect responsibility by Libya with a series of requirements laid out by a UN resolution for sanctions against Libya to be lifted. In 2011, during the First Libyan Civil War, former Minister of Justice Mustafa Abdul Jalil said that Gaddafi personally ordered the bombing.
As all the accomplices required for such a complex operation were never identified, or convicted, many conspiracy theories have circulated, such as East German Stasi agents having a possible role in the attack. Some relatives of the dead, including Lockerbie campaigner Jim Swire, believe the bomb was planted at Heathrow Airport and not sent via feeder flights from Malta, as suggested by the US and UK governments. (... Read the full article)
Selected quotes
-
" ... A witty statesman said, you might prove anything by figures ... "
— Thomas Carlyle
" ... Generally speaking the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous ... "
— David Hume -
" ... 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 -
" ... I have not yet begun to fight! ... "
— John Paul Jones
" ... Devolution will kill nationalism stone dead ... "
— George Robertson -
" ... 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 -
" ... 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
-
" ... In my end is my beginning ... "
— Mary, Queen of Scots
" ... The task of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there ... "
— John Buchan -
" ... A man without a goal is like a ship without a rudder ... "
— Thomas Carlyle
" ... I am prepared to go anywhere, provided it be forward ... "
— David Livingstone -
" ... I've got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom ... "
— Thomas Carlyle
" ... Kilt, n. - a costume sometimes worn by Scotsmen in America and Americans in Scotland ... "
— Ambrose Bierce -
" ... Well, we say yes and we are the people ... "
— Canon Kenyon Wright
" ... Socialism proposes to dethrone the brute-god Mammon and to lift humanity into its place ... "
— Keir Hardie -
" ... History is written from then to now but understood back to front ... "
— Allan Massie
" ... Growing old is great. It’s like getting drunk. Everyone around you gets better-looking ... "
— Billy Connolly -
" ... Jimmy Hill is to football what King Herod was to babysitting ... "
— Tommy Docherty
" ... Maybe that's why in England you have better horses, and in Scotland we have better men ... "
— James Boswell responding to Samuel Johnson
("In England we wouldn't think of eating oats. We only feed them to horses.") -
" ... 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 -
" ... Facts are stubborn things ... "
— Tobias Smollett
" ... History does not repeat itself. Historians repeat each other ... "
— A. J. Balfour -
" ... I think Calvinism has done more damage to Scotland than drugs ever did ... "
— Ronald David Laing
" ... A sense of proportion is anathema to the Glasgow drinker. When he goes at the bevvy it is a fight to the death ... "
— Hugh McIlvanney -
" ... 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 -
" ... 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 -
" ... God gave us our memories so that we might have roses in December ... "
— J. M. Barrie
" ... A man, as a general rule, owes very little to what he is born with – a man is what he makes of himself ... "
— Alexander Graham Bell -
" ... 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 -
" ... 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 -
" ... 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 -
" ... 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 -
" ... In Scotland, there is no such thing as bad weather - only the wrong clothes ... "
— Billy Connolly
" ... this nation must rank among the most enlightened in the universe. Politics, religion and literature have made of Scotland something beyond compare ... "
— Charles de Rémusat -
" ... 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 -
" ... Freedom is best, I tell thee true, of all things to be won ... "
— William Wallace
" ... The Irish gave the bagpipes to the Scots as a joke, but the Scots haven't seen the joke yet ... "
— Oliver Herford -
" ... Some of my plays peter out and some pan out ... "
— J. M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan
" ... There are two rules for drinking whisky. First, never take whisky without water, and second, never take water without whisky ... "
— Chic Murray
In the news
- 25 July 2026 –
- The Bishop of Aberdeen in Scotland declares the sedevacantist Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer religious institute, an order associated with the Society of Saint Pius X, to be excommunicated, after they consecrated a bishop without Vatican approval. (The Herald) (The Catholic Herald)
- 19 June 2026 – Terrorism in the United Kingdom
- 2026 Edinburgh attacks
- Five people are injured in Islamophobic attacks in Edinburgh, Scotland. A 36-year-old man is arrested and counter-terrorism police are investigating. (DW)
- 23 May 2026 – 2025–26 Scottish Cup
- 2026 Scottish Cup final
- In association football, Celtic beat second-tier Dunfermline Athletic 3–1 to win a record-extending 43th Scottish Cup title and complete the double this season. (BBC Sport) (ESPN)
- 8 May 2026 – 2026 United Kingdom local elections
- 2026 Scottish Parliament election, 2026 Senedd election
Selected biography
John Muir (/mjʊər/ MURE; April 21, 1838 – December 24, 1914), also known as "John of the Mountains" and "Father of the National Parks", was a Scottish-born American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher, botanist, zoologist, glaciologist, and early advocate for the preservation of wilderness in the United States.
His books, letters and essays describing his adventures in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada, have been read by millions. His activism helped to preserve the Yosemite Valley and Sequoia National Park, and his example has served as an inspiration for the preservation of many other wilderness areas. The Sierra Club, which he co-founded, is a prominent American conservation organization. In his later life, Muir devoted most of his time to his wife and the preservation of the Western forests. As part of the campaign to make Yosemite a national park, Muir published two landmark articles on wilderness preservation in The Century Magazine, "The Treasures of the Yosemite" and "Features of the Proposed Yosemite National Park"; this helped support the push for the US Congress to pass a bill in 1890 establishing Yosemite National Park. The spiritual quality and enthusiasm toward nature expressed in his writings has inspired readers, including presidents and congressmen, to take action to help preserve large nature areas.
John Muir has been considered "an inspiration to both Scots and Americans". Muir's biographer, Steven J. Holmes, believes that Muir has become "one of the patron saints of twentieth-century American environmental activity", both political and recreational. As a result, his writings are commonly discussed in books and journals, and he has often been quoted by nature photographers such as Ansel Adams. "Muir has profoundly shaped the very categories through which Americans understand and envision their relationships with the natural world", writes Holmes.
Muir was noted for being an ecological thinker, political spokesman, and environmental advocate, whose writings became a personal guide into nature for many people, making his name "almost ubiquitous" in the modern environmental consciousness. According to author William Anderson, Muir exemplified "the archetype of our oneness with the earth", while biographer Donald Worster says he believed his mission was "saving the American soul from total surrender to materialism". On April 21, 2013, the first John Muir Day was celebrated in Scotland, which marked the 175th anniversary of his birth, paying homage to the conservationist. (... Read the full article)
Selected picture
-
The William Younger Centre housing Our Dynamic Earth science centre
Our Dynamic Earth is a Scottish science centre and prominent conference venue and visitor attraction located in Holyrood, Edinburgh, beside the Scottish Parliament Building.
Photo credit: Globaltraveller -
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 -
Looking south from the Quiraing, Skye
The Isle of Skye, commonly known as Skye, is the largest and most northerly island in the Inner Hebrides. In Scottish Gaelic it is commonly referred to as An t-Eilean Sgiathanach ("The Winged Isle").
Photo credit: masher2 -
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 -
-
Inveraray Bridge on Loch Fyne
Loch Fyne (Scottish Gaelic: Loch Fìne, meaning "Loch of the Vine or Wine", is a sea loch on the west coast of Argyll and Bute. Although there is no evidence for grapes growing there, it was more metaphorical, such as meaning that the River, Abhainn Fìne, was a well-respected river.
Photo credit: Michael Parry -
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 -
Detail of the Queen from the Lewis chessmen
The Lewis chessmen (named after their find-site) belong to some of the few complete medieval chess sets that have survived until today. The chessmen are believed to have been made in Norway, perhaps by craftsmen in Trondheim (where similar pieces have been found), sometime during the 12th century.
Photo credit: Finlay McWalter -
-
Atlantic Puffins at Sumburgh Head, Shetland -
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 -
Comon seal basking on rocks
A common seal (Phoca vitulina) seen basking on rocks off Lismore, Argyll.
Photo credit: Sharp Photography -
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 -27.2oC, on 11 February 1895, and 10 January 1982.
Photo credit: Paul Chapman -
Ben Vorlich and Loch Tay seen from Ben Lawers
Sunrise over Ben Vorlich , a mountain in the Southern Highlands and Loch Tay, the largest body of fresh water in Perth and Kinross.
Photo credit: Michal Klajban -
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 -
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 -
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 -
-
Dunfermline Abbey, east side viewed from the south
Dunfermline Abbey is a large Benedictine abbey in Dunfermline, Fife. It was administered by the Abbot of Dunfermline. The abbey was founded in 1128 by King David I, but the monastic establishment was based on an earlier foundation dating back to the reign of King Máel Coluim mac Donnchada (i.e. "Malcolm III" or "Malcolm Canmore", r. 1058-93).
Photo credit: Mussklprozz -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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
.jpg)
.jpg)
_2.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
Did You Know...
- ... that the urban environment around Glasgow's Argyle Street ash tree may have helped it to survive ash dieback disease?
- ... that before Michael Shanks became Member of Parliament for Rutherglen and Hamilton West, he ran along all of Glasgow's 6,143 streets?
- ... that the Scottish judge Lord Duthie served as an officer in the Royal Naval Reserve?
- ... that during the First Bishops' War, the Duke of Hamilton's mother intended to shoot him with silver bullets if he landed in Scotland?
- ... that Scottish bricklayer Brian Higgins was unable to find work for 25 years after appearing on a construction-industry blacklist?
- ... that Prince Philip was the first member of the British royal family to fly in a helicopter?
- ... that Paddy Higson was known as the "mother of Scottish film"?
- ... that Scottish politician Tam Dalyell opposed devolution, warning it would become a "motorway without exit to a separate state"?
Get involved
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.
Related portals
Other language versions
Associated Wikimedia
The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:
-
Commons
Free media repository -
Wikidata
Free knowledge base -
Wikiquote
Collection of quotations -
Wikisource
Free-content library -
Wikispecies
Directory of species -
Wikiversity
Free learning tools -
Wikivoyage
Free travel guide -
Wiktionary
Dictionary and thesaurus
