Talk:Scotland

Commas

@Rhain, isn’t it very good that you seemingly have dipped into my edit history and started reverting some of my edits in relation to the removal of unnecessary American-style commas? You even added this page to your watch-list (clearly anticipating and perhaps desiring a dispute), asserting your own preferences on an article you had no history with and despite the fact that several months ago at Grand Theft Auto VI you made it clear you were not even aware that "US" is preferred in British English over "U.S." You aren’t aware of the basics of British English, and your understanding of English appears to be thoroughly Americanised, so why do you make edits on the matter? "On Saturday morning I went for a walk round my favourite park," for example, is a perfectly ordinary British English sentence. It’s not incorrect and we don’t need a comma after "morning", and such a comma would not make the sentence any clearer. We don’t need a comma after the brief adverbial phrase "In 1603" either. Keeper of Albion (talk) 14:11, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

This article is not on my watchlist; you reverted my edit, which pings me automatically. You attempted a similar edit in August, which was reverted, and you were asked to start a discussion​; you did not, and instead made a similar edit in October. The changes you've made—which you've admitted are a matter of preference—are not dictated or supported by the MoS; it's fine that you write that way, and nobody is claiming that it is incorrect or extraordinary, but consensus ought to be sought before continuing to force it into articles when faced with reversions.

I'm not sure where you got the idea about my understanding of "US" vs "U.S." (another difference not strictly enforced) or why it is still bothering you—I suspect, perhaps, because I happened to revert this change of yours several months ago amidst your dozens of other alterations—but it is neither relevant nor correct. To clarify, British and Australian English are my primary varieties. – Rhain ☔ (he/him) 14:50, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

Relative population map

130km
81miles

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Relative population map.

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Total Scotland population (wikidata:Q22) = 5,404,700 (2016 estimation)

(WD = Wikidata page)

[Hide/show council populations]

	Scotland	pop.
1	Aberdeen City	227,560 WD
2	Aberdeenshire	261,210 WD
3	Angus, Scotland	115,820 WD
4	Argyll and Bute	85,870 WD
5	City of Edinburgh	524,930 WD
6	Clackmannanshire	51,540 WD
7	Dumfries and Galloway	148,860 WD
8	Dundee City	149,320 WD
9	East Ayrshire	122,010 WD
10	East Dunbartonshire	108,640 WD
11	East Lothian	107,090 WD
12	East Renfrewshire	95,530 WD
13	Falkirk (council area)	160,340 WD
14	Fife	373,550 WD
15	Glasgow City	633,120 WD
16	Highland (council area)	235,540 WD
17	Inverclyde	77,800 WD
18	Midlothian	92,460 WD
19	Moray	95,820 WD
20	North Ayrshire	134,740 WD
21	North Lanarkshire	340,180 WD
22	Orkney	22,270 WD
23	Outer Hebrides	26,720 WD
24	Perth and Kinross	151,950 WD
25	Renfrewshire	179,100 WD
26	Scottish Borders	115,510 WD
27	Shetland	23,210 WD
28	South Ayrshire	112,610 WD
29	South Lanarkshire	319,020 WD
30	Stirling (council area)	94,210 WD
31	West Dunbartonshire	88,930 WD
32	West Lothian	182,140 WD

There seems to be a problem with the map added in these recent edits, in regard to the "Hide/show council population" function. Clicking on it produces no result for me (I've tried Chrome and Bing incidentally) though I somehow, once, got it displaying that a table was there (not sure how but I think it may have been from clicking on "full screen" at the top right, then using the back arrow to the article, but I can't replicate this). From this glimpse of the table, I ascertained that the numbers appear to solely relate to this key, were it visible, and the order, if significant was not clear (not, e.g. relative population, order of size, alphabetic).

Viewed in the context of the article, almost all the numbers in the map are superimposed upon each other, so illegible and can't be accessed functionally. If the map is expanded to full screen and zoomed into, the numbers can be seen but I can see no key so they have no evident purpose in this view. Hovering over an individual number gives the council name and population figure.

There is no number over Aberdeenshire council but, on investigation, it is hidden behind the number at adjacent Aberdeen council.

The title of the diagram is given "relative population" map, which led me to think the numbers somehow indicated relations in size, like another aspect complementing the existing cartogram, but there appears to be no relative aspect to it. Should it maybe be just "council area populations" or the like? Depending on purpose and without these problems, the map may be a useful addition but this is not yet clear to me. Mutt Lunker (talk) 17:01, 11 January 2026 (UTC)

Agree with the above.... simply an accessibility nightmare. This might be useful on the demographics page if it was centralized and large enough. Wonder if we should have a wider talk on these due to accessibility concerns and how they should be displayed and when they should be and not be used in small versions. That all said I've always been weary about links that bring readers outside of English Wikipedia without warning.Moxy🍁 17:30, 11 January 2026 (UTC)

Comments noted and happy with reversion as this newly developed Lua module coded by another is a bit too busy at this resolution and appears to be having issues with pulling this much wikidata on 31 councils although it did pull in testing. The too busy appearance is addressable, but I will feed back to developer on unresponsive key and see if anything can be done. As coded in Lua the issue is likely to be too much wikidata causing the issue as works fine up to 20 council areas. ChaseKiwi (talk) 11:23, 12 January 2026 (UTC)

A better version is at Demographics of Scotland. As to links bringing you to wikidata I think this could be addressed by developer too. ChaseKiwi (talk) 11:45, 12 January 2026 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 1 February 2026

Hi, I have this very good digital poster of Scotland, and I believe that it would add a great benefit for the Wikipedia page of Scotland. MDF3MM (talk) 13:17, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

I uploaded it to Wikimedia Commons:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scotland_Poster_2024.jpg MDF3MM (talk) 13:46, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

 Not done: Copyright status of the image is unclear. You uploaded it claiming it is your own work, but it appears to be a satellite view of Scotland. Day Creature (talk) 18:25, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

Proposed edit to the "Scotland" Page

Change BSL from "Recognised minority language" to official language. Proof: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2022/34 StubbornScot (talk) 03:44, 3 April 2026 (UTC)

Yes, this looks OK. But let me just check: the legislation is "to recognise British Sign Language as a language of England, Wales and Scotland". Is that the same as making it an official language? Can anyone can clarify this? Mike Marchmont (talk) 09:14, 3 April 2026 (UTC)

I suspect the phrasing in the Act of "recognised as a language" is carefully done to avoid using "official", because for a UK-wide bit of legislation that opens something of a can of worms. At the time the legislation was passed, from the explanatory notes to the BSL Act:

There is no ‘official’ legal language of the United Kingdom. However, the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011 gives the Welsh language official status in Wales. The Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act 2005 establishes a body for promoting the use of the Gaelic language in Scotland. The British Sign Language (Scotland) Act 2015 requires Scottish Ministers to promote and facilitate the promotion of BSL. British Sign Language was recognised as a language in its own right by a written ministerial statement to the House of Commons on 18 March 2003 by the then Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Mr Andrew Smith MP.

(The BSL "language in its own right" was done by reference to the status in the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, which may explain why it has the "recognised minority language" phrasing in this article).

The situation has developed a little since then - as of 2025 (in the Scottish Languages Act 2025), Gaelic and Scots are both explicitly described in legislation as "has official status within Scotland". However, that Act does not define a status for BSL (or indeed English) in Scotland, so presumably it remains "recognised".

I think the best bet would be to have the infobox say something like either

• Official language English (de facto); Scots; Scottish Gaelic
• Recognised language British Sign Language

or

• Official language English (de facto); Scots; Scottish Gaelic; British Sign Language (recognised)

with an explanatory footnote to explain the three different statuses. There's an overview article here from 2018 which we cite a few places on WP for the "de facto" phrasing for English and would be appropriate here.

But I think we should avoid saying BSL is official in the same way as Scots or Gaelic, when the legislation for "official" didn't mention BSL and the legislation for BSL avoided using the term "official". We probably also need to cover this in some way in the Scotland#Languages section; at the moment there's nothing there on status at all. Andrew Gray (talk) 10:07, 3 April 2026 (UTC)

@Andrew, that's a very comprehensive and helpful explanation. Either of your suggested edits to the InfoBox look good to me. That said, I have just noticed that it already shows BSL as a "Recognised minority languages". Perhaps leave it at that? Mike Marchmont (talk) 11:03, 3 April 2026 (UTC)

That might work. Looking at other articles it's a bit of a muddle -

• United Kingdom has "National language" English and then everything else as "Regional and minority languages", including BSL, with an explanatory (but outdated) footnote, and nothing about official status in the body of the article beyond that English is de facto.
• Wales has "Official languages" English and Welsh, no mention of BSL
• England has "National language" English and BSL, "Regional languages" Cornish
• Northern Ireland has "Official language" English and Irish, "Regional and minority languages" Ulster Scots. (The BSL Act does not extend to NI)

I'll try to bring these into sync a bit. Andrew Gray (talk) 12:09, 3 April 2026 (UTC)

Anyone have any idea how to edit the map caption in the infobox?

I want to change

Location of Scotland (dark green)

– in Europe (green & dark grey)

– in the United Kingdom (green)

To

Location of Scotland (dark green)

– in the United Kingdom (green)

– in Europe (grey)

But I can't see where the text is defined? It doesn't appear to be from the infobox or on commons. Best, Carlinmack (talk) 14:11, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

okay realised that it's from the default template and overrode it, but maybe this wasn't the best. I will try swap them in the upstream template Carlinmack (talk) 14:46, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

I don't know what you have done, but your recent edit has knocked out the alignment, making the Scotland article fall out of line with articles such as England and Wales. There was a consistency across the infoboxes of the UK countries which you appear to have messed up with your edit. Goodreg3 (talk) 18:25, 3 June 2026 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 June 2026

Near the start of the page it mentions Scotland is a country. while this is partly true a more accurate definition would be Constituent Country as it's a part of the 4 nations that make up the United Kingdom and is not it's own independent country, so it doesn't fit the definition of a country 100% but fully fits the definition of a Constituent Country. ~2026-33253-63 (talk) 07:16, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

• See the archives of this Talk page, where a consensus summary wording has been debated at length. The article linked from the word country is also useful in describing the specific situation. AllyD (talk) 08:39, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

I would agree but this seems semantic, the first phrase used is “is a country that is part of the United Kingdom” which already explains what you are describing in plain terms, and the word “country” in the article links to “Countries of the United Kingdom”. So what you’re asking for would be less intuitive to a layperson ~2026-36921-12 (talk) 07:48, 26 June 2026 (UTC)