Portal:Scotland
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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 society, 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
Glen Coe (Scottish Gaelic: Gleann Comhann pronounced [klan̪ˠˈkʰo.ən̪ˠ]) is a glen of glacial origins that cuts though volcanic rocks in the Highlands of Scotland. It lies in the north of the county of Argyll, close to the border with the historic province of Lochaber, within the modern council area of Highland. Glen Coe is regarded as the home of Scottish mountaineering and is popular with hillwalkers and climbers.
A 2010 review by Scottish Natural Heritage into the special qualities of Scotland's National scenic areas listed the "soaring, dramatic splendour of Glen Coe", and "the suddenness of the transition between high mountain pass and the lightly wooded strath" as being of note. The review also described the journey through the glen on the main A82 road as "one of the classic Highland journeys". The main settlement is the village of Glencoe located at the foot of the glen.
On 13 February 1692, in the aftermath of the Jacobite uprising of 1689, an incident known as the Massacre of Glencoe took place in the glen. Thirty-eight men from Clan MacDonald of Glencoe were killed by government forces who were billeted with them on the grounds that they had not been prompt in pledging allegiance to the new monarchs, William and Mary.
The Glen is named after the River Coe which runs through it. The name of the river may predate the Gaelic language, as its meaning is not known. It is possible that the name stems from an individual personal name, Comhan (genitive Comhain). (... Read the full article)
Selected quotes
" ... 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
" ... 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
" ... 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
" ... All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies ... "
— Dr John Arbuthnot
" ... Where all is compulsion and enforcement, it’s the bully that rules ... "
— Neil M. Gunn
" ... When Scotland forgets Burns, then history will forget Scotland ... "
— John Stuart Blackie
" ... Women do not find it difficult nowadays to behave like men, but they often find it extremely difficult to behave like gentlemen ... "
— Compton Mackenzie
" ... Is there anything worn under the kilt? No, it's all in perfect working order ... "
— Spike Milligan
" ... The true definition of a snob is one who craves for what separates men rather than for what unites them ... "
— John Buchan
" ... 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
" ... 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
" ... 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
" ... Oh, what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practice to deceive ... "
— Sir Walter Scott
" ... Look to your consciences and remember that the theatre of the world is wider than the realm of England ... "
— Mary, Queen of Scots
" ... 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
" ... 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
" ... 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
" ... 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
" ... 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
" ... 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
" ... 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)
" ... To live for a time close to great minds is the best kind of education ... "
— John Buchan
" ... Edinburgh is a cross between Copenhagen and Barcelona, except in Copenhagen they speak more understandable English ... "
— John Malkovich
" ... 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"
" ... A good gulp of whisky at bedtime – it’s not scientific but it helps ... "
— Sir Alexander Fleming
" ... I have been trying all my life to like Scotchmen, and am obliged to desist from the experiment in despair ... "
— Charles Lamb
" ... 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
" ... 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
" ... 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
" ... 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
" ... 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
In the news
- 14 September 2026 – Separatism in the United Kingdom, Decolonization
- The First Ministers of Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales meet in Cardiff at a summit to call for their independence from the United Kingdom. (BBC News) (The Guardian)
- 3 August 2026 – 2020–2026 H5N1 outbreak
- Scotland's NatureScot denies a 2026 licence for hunting northern gannets on Sula Sgeir, citing possible harm to the local gannet population after recent bird-flu deaths. (AFP via RFI)
- 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)
Selected biography
Peter Guthrie Tait FRSE (28 April 1831 – 4 July 1901) was a Scottish mathematical physicist and early pioneer in thermodynamics. He is best known for the mathematical physics textbook Treatise on Natural Philosophy, which he co-wrote with Lord Kelvin, and his early investigations into knot theory.
His work on knot theory contributed to the eventual formation of topology as a mathematical discipline. His name is known in graph theory mainly for Tait's conjecture on cubic graphs. He is also one of the namesakes of the Tait–Kneser theorem on osculating circles. (... Read the full article)
Selected picture
Crofters cottage and sheep, Cairngorms National Park 
The Finnieston Crane on the River Clyde
The Finnieston Crane or Stobcross Crane is a disused giant cantilever crane in the centre of Glasgow. It is no longer operational, but is retained as a symbol of the city's engineering heritage. The crane was used for loading cargo, in particular steam locomotives, onto ships to be exported around the world.
Photo credit: VegasGav7777
Cape Wrath Peninsula
Cape Wrath (Scottish Gaelic: Am Parbh, known as An Carbh in Lewis) is a cape in the Durness parish of the county of Sutherland in the Highlands of Scotland, and is the most north-westerly point in Great Britain.
Photo credit: RealSnowhunter
Plane arrival at Barra Airport
Barra Airport (Scottish Gaelic: Port-adhair Bharraigh) (IATA: BRR, ICAO: EGPR) (also known as Barra Eoligarry Airport) is a short-runway airport (or STOLport) situated in the wide shallow bay of Traigh Mhòr at the north tip of the island of Barra in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland. The airport is unique, being the only one in the world where scheduled flights use a beach as the runway.
Photo credit: Steve Holdsworth
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
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
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
National Museum of Scotland, main hall
The National Museum of Scotland is one of Scotland's national museums, on Chambers Street, in Edinburgh. The original Royal Museum began in the 19th century and was added to in the 1990s when a new building known as The Museum of Scotland was added, both merging in 2007 into The National Museum of Scotland.
Photo credit: Shimgray
Traigh Iar (Horgabost beach), Harris, which is part of Lewis and Harris, the largest island in the Outer Hebrides, .
Photo credit: Gordon Hatton
Balmoral Castle
Balmoral Castle. Aberdeenshire a residence of the British royal family in the Scottish baronial style.
Photo credit: Ejdzej
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
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
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
View towards the Quiraing 
Blackrock cottage, Rannoch Moor
A view of Blackrock Cottage on Rannoch Moor with Buachaille Etive Mor in the background.
Photo credit: Andrewmckie
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
Statue of Greyfriars Bobby on George IV Bridge, Edinburgh
Greyfriars Bobby was a Skye Terrier who became known in 19th-century, Scotland, after reportedly spending fourteen years guarding his owner's grave, until his own death on 14 January 1872. A year after the dog died, the philanthropist Baroness Burdett Coutts, had a statue and fountain erected to commemorate him.
Photo credit: MykReeve
Atlantic Puffins at Sumburgh Head, Shetland 
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
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
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
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
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Did You Know...
- ... that a lane behind a tenement in Edinburgh is decorated as a Wild West town?
- ... that Prince Philip was the first member of the British royal family to fly in a helicopter?
- ... that Q Manivannan and Iris Duane are the first two openly transgender people elected to the Scottish Parliament?
- ... that the construction of the Jubilee Bridge was featured in the 1982 documentary about the A9 road reconstruction?
- ... that George Parks was president of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and his son Rowan Parks became president of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh?
- ... that Scottish politician Tam Dalyell opposed devolution, warning it would become a "motorway without exit to a separate state"?
- ... that the unlicensed Willy's Chocolate Experience in Scotland led to a crossover event between the American television series Abbott Elementary and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia?
- ... that historically, lichens like Umbilicaria torrefacta have been used to naturally dye traditional Scottish tartans and textiles?
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.
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Post a question on the Talk Page or consider asking it at the Wikipedia reference desk.
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