Portal:Scotland
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Introduction
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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. In 2022, the country's population was about 5.4 million. Its capital city is Edinburgh, whilst Glasgow is the largest city and the most populous of the cities of Scotland. 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 legislature, the Scottish Parliament, elects 129 MSPs to represent 73 constituencies across the country. 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.
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 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.
Selected article
The Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle is an order of chivalry associated with Scotland. The current version of the order was founded in 1687 by King James VII of Scotland, who asserted that he was reviving an earlier order. The order consists of the sovereign and sixteen knights and ladies, as well as certain "extra" knights (members of the British royal family and foreign monarchs). The sovereign alone grants membership of the order; they are not advised by the government, as occurs with most other orders.
The order's primary emblem is the thistle, the national flower of Scotland. The motto is Nemo me impune lacessit (Latin for "No one provokes me with impunity"). The same motto appears on the Royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom for use in Scotland and pound coins minted in 1984, 1989, 1994, and 1999 (since withdrawn), and is also the motto of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, the Scots Guards, the Royal Regiment of Scotland, and the Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) of Canada. The patron saint of the order is St Andrew.
Most British orders of chivalry cover the whole United Kingdom, but the three most exalted ones each pertain to one constituent country only. The Order of the Thistle, which pertains to Scotland, is the second most senior in precedence. Its equivalent in England, the Most Noble Order of the Garter, is the oldest documented order of chivalry in the United Kingdom, dating to the middle fourteenth century. In 1783 an Irish equivalent, the Most Illustrious Order of St Patrick, was founded, but it is now dormant. (... Read the full article)
Selected quotes
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" ... Good lies need a leavening of truth to make them palatable ... "
— William McIlvanney
" ... Golf is a thoroughly national game; it is as Scotch as haggis, cockie-leekie, high cheek-bones or rowanberry jam ... "
— Andrew Lang -
" ... His mind was a kind of extinct sulphur pit ... "
— Thomas Carlyle (Speaking of Napoleon III)
" ... Fire is the best of servants; but what a master! ... "
— Thomas Carlyle -
" ... 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 -
" ... 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 -
" ... 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 -
" ... 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 -
" ... 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 -
" ... 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 -
" ... 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 -
" ... 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 -
" ... Without humility there can be no humanity ... "
— John Buchan
" ... I don't pretend to understand the Universe - it's a great deal bigger than I am ... "
— Thomas Carlyle -
" ... 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 -
" ... 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 -
" ... Teach a parrot the terms "supply and demand" and you've got an economist ... "
— Thomas Carlyle
" ... A man’s real possession is his memory. In nothing else is he rich, in nothing else is he poor ... "
— Alexander McCall Smith -
" ... 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 -
" ... 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 -
" ... 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 -
" ... 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" -
" ... 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 -
" ... 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 -
" ... It's a small world, but I wouldn't want to have to paint it ... "
— Chic Murray
" ... Did not strong connections draw me elsewhere, I believe Scotland would be the country I would choose to end my days in ... "
— Benjamin Franklin -
" ... Old and young, we are all on our last cruise ... "
— Robert Louis Stevenson
" ... None of Nature's landscapes are ugly so long as they are wild ... "
— John Muir -
" ... One can love a country until it hurts ... "
— Alexander McCall Smith
" ... I thought he was a young man of promise, but I see he was a young man of promises ... "
— A. J. Balfour -
" ... the inarticulate expression of the inequalities of life ... "
— Jimmy Boyle (Speaking of crime)
" ... The proletarian has no country; all are equally prisons to him alike ... "
— Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham -
" ... No man is useless while he has a friend ... "
— Robert Louis Stevenson
" ... Scottish separation is part of England's imperial disintegration ... "
— John MacLean
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)
Selected biography
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Robert I (11 July 1274 – 7 June 1329), popularly known as Robert the Bruce (Scottish Gaelic: Raibeart am Brusach), was King of Scots from 1306 until his death in 1329. Robert led Scotland during the First War of Scottish Independence against England. He fought successfully during his reign to restore Scotland to an independent kingdom and is regarded in Scotland as a national hero.
Robert was a fourth-great-grandson of King David I, and his grandfather, Robert de Brus, 5th Lord of Annandale, was one of the claimants to the Scottish throne during the "Great Cause".
As Earl of Carrick, Robert the Bruce supported his family's claim to the Scottish throne and took part in William Wallace's campaign against Edward I of England. Appointed in 1298 as a Guardian of Scotland alongside his chief rival for the throne, John Comyn of Badenoch, and William Lamberton, Bishop of St Andrews, Robert resigned in 1300 because of his quarrels with Comyn and the apparently imminent restoration of John Balliol to the Scottish throne. After submitting to Edward I in 1302 and returning to "the king's peace", Robert inherited his family's claim to the Scottish throne upon his father's death.
Bruce's involvement in John Comyn's murder in February 1306 led to his excommunication by Pope Clement V (although he received absolution from Robert Wishart, Bishop of Glasgow). Bruce moved quickly to seize the throne and was crowned king of Scots on 25 March 1306. Edward I's forces defeated Robert in the Battle of Methven, forcing him to flee into hiding, before re-emerging in 1307 to defeat an English army at Loudoun Hill and wage a highly successful guerrilla war against the English. (... Read the full article)
Selected picture
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Panorma of Loch Torridon
Loch Torridon (Scottish Gaelic: Loch Thoirbheartan) is a sea loch on the west coast of the Northwest Highlands. The loch was created by glacial processes and is in total around 15 miles (25 km) long. It has two sections: Upper Loch Torridon to landward, east of Rubha na h-Airde Ghlaise, at which point it joins Loch Sheildaig; and the main western section of Loch Torridon proper.
Photo credit: Stefan Krause -
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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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
Balmoral Castle
Balmoral Castle. Aberdeenshire a residence of the British royal family in the Scottish baronial style.
Photo credit: Ejdzej -
View from the Rest and be Thankful -
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 -
St Mary's Cathedral viewsedfrom Manor Place, Edinburgh -
Glasgow University main building with Dumgoyne and the Campsie Fells in the background
Autumnal view of Glasgow University main building with Dumgoyne and the Campsie Fells in the background
Photo credit: Ian Dick -
Aerial view of Pennan village
Pennan (Scots: Peenan) is a small village in Aberdeenshire] consisting of a small harbour and a single row of homes. Pennan became famous for representing the fictional village of Ferness, being one of the main locations for the film Local Hero.
Photo credit: Tadpolefarm -
Overview of Holyrood Palace
Holyrood Palace is the official residence of the British monarch in Scotland. Located at the bottom of the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, at the opposite end to Edinburgh Castle, Holyrood has served as the principal royal residence in Scotland since the 16th century, and is a setting for state occasions and official entertaining.
Photo credit: Christoph Strässler -
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 -
The Black Cuillin viewed from Sgùrr na Strì
The Black Cuillin, a range of rocky mountains located on the Isle of Skye, viewed from Sgùrr na Strì.
Photo credit: User:YaoAxton -
Side view of Mons Meg
Mons Meg is a medieval bombard in the collection of the Royal Armouries, on loan to Historic Environment Scotland and located at Edinburgh Castle. It was built in 1449 on the orders of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, and sent by him as a gift to James II, King of Scots, in 1454. The bombard was employed in sieges until the middle of the 16th century
Photo credit: Lee Sie -
The Callanish Stones
The Callanish Stones are an arrangement of standing stones near the village of Callanish on the west coast of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. Placed in a cruciform pattern with a central stone circle, they were erected in the late Neolithic era, and were a focus for ritual activity during the Bronze Age
Photo credit: Mrdog10 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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
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Did You Know...
- ... 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?
- ... that the New York Yankees were first named after a Scottish regiment?
- ... that the 1830 abandonment of Chipewyan woman Matooskie by her Scottish husband was eventually settled with a dowry payment of £200?
- ... that Colin Mackay, the political editor at Scottish Television, was "very sad" when Colin MacKay, the political editor at Scottish Television, died?
- ... that John Neilson, a Scottish immigrant to Lower Canada, became a major publisher and bookseller, and was reportedly "the largest consumer of paper" in the country?
- ... 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 Scottish bricklayer Brian Higgins was unable to find work for 25 years after appearing on a construction-industry blacklist?
- ... that the Scottish surgeon John Blair was the only dux of his high school to receive his gold medal in the presence of his wife and child?
Get involved
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- 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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