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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. 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. It is the most sparsely populated country of the United Kingdom. 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 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, however 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. (Full article...)
Selected article
Cutty Sark is a British clipper ship. Built on the River Leven, Dumbarton, Scotland in 1869 for the Jock Willis Shipping Line, she was one of the last tea clippers to be built and one of the fastest, at the end of a long period of design development for this type of vessel, which ended as steamships took over their routes. She was named after the short shirt of the fictional witch in Robert Burns' poem Tam o' Shanter, first published in 1791.
After the big improvement in the fuel efficiency of steamships in 1866, the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 gave them a shorter route to China, so Cutty Sark spent only a few years on the tea trade before turning to the trade in wool from Australia, where she held the record time to Britain for ten years. Continuing improvements in steam technology early in the 1880s meant that steamships also came to dominate the longer sailing route to Australia, and the ship was sold to the Portuguese company Ferreira and Co. in 1895 and renamed Ferreira. She continued as a cargo ship until purchased in 1922 by retired sea captain Wilfred Dowman, who used her as a training ship operating from Falmouth, Cornwall. After his death, Cutty Sark was transferred to the Thames Nautical Training College, Greenhithe, in 1938 where she became an auxiliary cadet training ship alongside HMS Worcester. By 1954, she had ceased to be useful as a cadet ship and was transferred to permanent dry dock at Greenwich, London, for public display.
Cutty Sark is listed by National Historic Ships as part of the National Historic Fleet (the nautical equivalent of a Grade 1 Listed Building). She is one of only three remaining intact composite construction (wooden hull on an iron frame) ships from the nineteenth century, the others being the clipper City of Adelaide, now in Port Adelaide, South Australia, and the warship HMS Gannet in Chatham. The beached skeleton of Ambassador, of 1869 lying near Punta Arenas, Chile is the only other significant remnant of this construction method.
Selected quotes
" ... In my end is my beginning ... "
" ... The task of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there ... "
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Selected biography
Sir Kenneth Mathieson Dalglish (born 4 March 1951) is a Scottish former football player and manager. He is regarded as one of the greatest players of all time as well as one of Celtic's, Liverpool's and Britain's greatest ever players. During his career, he made 338 appearances for Celtic and 515 for Liverpool, playing as a forward, and earned a record 102 caps for the Scotland national team, scoring 30 goals, also a joint record. Dalglish won the Ballon d'Or Silver Award in 1983, the PFA Players' Player of the Year in 1983, and the FWA Footballer of the Year in 1979 and 1983. In 2009, FourFourTwo magazine named Dalglish the greatest striker in post-war British football, and he has been inducted into both the Scottish and English Football Halls of Fame. He is highly regarded by Liverpool fans, who still affectionately refer to him as "King Kenny", and in 2006 voted him top of the fans' poll "100 Players Who Shook the Kop".
Dalglish began his career with Celtic in 1971, going on to win four Scottish league championships, four Scottish Cups and one Scottish League Cup with the club. In 1977, Liverpool manager Bob Paisley paid a British transfer record of £440,000 to take Dalglish to Liverpool. His years at Liverpool were among the club's most successful periods, as he won six English league championships, the FA Cup, four League Cups, five FA Charity Shields, three European Cups and one European Super Cup. In international football, Dalglish made 102 appearances and scored 30 goals for Scotland between 1971 and 1986, becoming their most capped player and joint-leading goal scorer (with Denis Law). He was chosen for Scotland's FIFA World Cup squads in 1974, 1978, 1982 and 1986, playing in all of those tournaments except the latter, due to injury.
Selected picture
Sunset in Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park. The high peak on left of the image is Ben Lomond.
Photo credit: Michal Klajban
Did You Know...
- ... that the 4,000-year-old Ravenswood standing stone now lies in a cul-de-sac in a 1970s Scottish housing estate?
- ... that mountaineer and geographer Caleb George Cash was instrumental in preserving essential documents pertaining to the first known atlas of Scotland?
- ... that the 2024 Hillhead by-election was the first by-election won by the Scottish Green Party?
- ... 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 George Balanchine's ballet Scotch Symphony, set to Mendelssohn's Scottish Symphony, evokes the style of La Sylphide, a romantic ballet set in Scotland?
- ... that the construction of the Jubilee Bridge was featured in the 1982 documentary about the A9 road reconstruction?
- ... 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 the Aesculapian Club, founded in Edinburgh in 1773, still meets twice a year?
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.
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