Talk:List of towns and cities in Scotland by population

Elgin?
Elgin is a town, surely? Marks87 (talk) 16:02, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks
Just to say this list was very helpful - I just wanted a list of the main towns! Isonomia (talk) 18:54, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Population Figures
The settlement population figures in this table are not consistent with the 2001 Census information. For instance Livingston does not have a population over 70,000. West Lothian Council estimates show approximately 55,000 in 2008. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.133.117.123 (talk) 16:29, 17 March 2010 (UTC) Also Inverness seems to be a topic of heavy debate. What are you including? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eastwood Park and strabane (talk • contribs) 12:08, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

Total update with new figures
This page was a right mess due to people trying to update from 2001 census figures. I have completely updated using the GRO Scotland 2008 mid year estimates for Localities (released March 2010) as they are the most recent available and closest in scope to the original figures.

This is not ideal in some areas with odd places like Viewpark and Giffnock appearing that aren't really proper localities but they are consistent and its what GRO use.

See the original info here http://www.gro-scotland.gov.uk/statistics/publications-and-data/population-estimates/special-area/settlements-localities/mid-2008-pop-est-settlements-localities/localities-list-of-tables.html

Please do not update one town with a number from elsewhere unless you are prepared to update all 56 from the same source as I have done to maintain consistency. Cheers Andrewdpcotton (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 14:33, 7 April 2010 (UTC).

Tags
Have removed the tags. All figures here are referenced from the GRO Scotland figures linekd at foot of page so additional reference tag was obviously not required. Have also removed the out of date tag. The Mid 2008 GRO Scotland settlement figures were released in March 2010 and are a biennial publication so the next anticipated update to these figures would be the Mid 2010 figures which are likely to be released in Spring 2012. I suspect they will be included in what GRO describe as "Sub-National Population Projections for Scottish Areas, 2010-based" which are due for release in February 2012 according to this page: http://www.gro-scotland.gov.uk/futurepb.html Andrewdpcotton (talk) 15:17, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Updated Figures
Have updated with Mid 2010 Population estimates (most recent available). Main changes are that GRO have decided to rename Kirkcaldy to Kirkcaldy and Dysart so I have kept their usage and pipelinked to Kirkcaldy article, lumped Methil and Buckhaven together so again I've used their spelling but pipelinked to the Levenmouth article. GRO also seem to have been stricter in drawing boundaries of smaller towns so Polmont, Giffnock, Clarkston and Stenhousemuir all drop off this list as their populations fall due to outlying areas of those towns being classified as separate localities e.g. Westquarter near Polmont gains its own separate listing from GRO.

Have also changed page name back to what it is, a list of towns and cities. Locality is a technical term used by GRO for tightly drawn town and city boundaries. Settlement is their equivalent loosely drawn figure. This is a list of towns and cities though whether we use locality or settlement populations. Andrewdpcotton (talk) 11:53, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Source 1
Source 1 is a dead link. Pablothepenguin (talk) 18:06, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

Inverness
The 79,000 population figure for Inverness comes from Highland Council figures for what they call the "Inverness City Area" This is the population of 7 Multi Member Wards, not just the 4 and a bit wards that comprise Inverness itself. The 79,000 population includes small towns and villages outside Inverness such as Culloden, Westhill, Cradlehall and Smithton as well as more distant settlements such as Ardersier, Cawdor, Tomatin, Beauly, Cannich, Drumnadrochit and even Fort Augustus which is 35 miles away.

For this article we need to use figures for the urban area only and using the NRS derived statistics enables a consistent comparison across Scotland.Andrewdpcotton (talk) 09:06, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

Localities
I'm still uncertain of what "inside city/town limits" mean given that Scotland only has one main level of local government (council areas), which often cover an area far larger than the spatial area of a town or city. Are town and city limits legal entities and uniformly created? Can and do town and city limits overlap council area limits? Just trying to figure out what is being measured as it concerns "localities." --Criticalthinker (talk) 10:08, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Localities are defined by National Records Scotland. They use a measure of population density applied to each postcode and then map which postcodes are adjacent to each other to form localities. So it is built up areas without any low density areas separating them from the next locality. Because of this technical measure they don't always fit with community definitions of an area but they are consistent in their methodology across Scotland. The localities can be and are split across 2 council areas. For one example look at Harthill, defined as a single locality by NRS but located in both North Lanarkshire and West Lothian. You can see the methodology here: http://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/statistics-and-data/statistics/statistics-by-theme/population/population-estimates/special-area-population-estimates/settlements-and-localities/background-information Andrewdpcotton (talk) 09:28, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Okay, sounds like it's a similar definition to England's which are called localities or "urban sub-divisions." --Criticalthinker (talk) 09:45, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Confused again. I recently made a change that I'm now unsure of and it gets back to the definition of "limits."  I took this to mean that a settlement can cross council area limits, but that localities can't.  And then I got to the case Cumbernauld, which is confusing on two levels.  First, on the locality list it's only listed as being in North Lanarkshire, but on the settlements list it's listed as being in North Lanarkshire and East Dunbartonshire.  The problem is that the same population figure is given for each.  So...


 * 1. Can localities cross council area boundaries, or must they be contained within a single council area? If the former, it is a bit strange, then, that no populated area on the locality list is listed as being in anymore than one council area.


 * 2. Is it possible for a populated area - like in the case of Cumbernauld - to be both a locality and settlement simultaneously?


 * I guess what I'm saying is that the council area listings for Cumbernauld (and any other populated area for that matter) need to be listed consistently on the page. --Criticalthinker (talk) 10:58, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Actually, it seems neither localities nor settlements are bound by council areas, so we need to go through the list and add additional council areas to those that span more than one. I'm still confused by Cumbernauld, as codes given to it breaking it into parts, but maybe only the North Lanarkshire portion has population? It seems pretty clear given that the population is the same for each that the locality and settlement coincide with one another. --Criticalthinker (talk) 11:26, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Okay, I now see page 5 of this document (NRS–Background InformationSettlementsand Localities) makes the most sense. I think what was confusing me was that they were going through this chronologically instead of simply stating what the current criteria is. It seems that first settlements are created using criteria for "high density postcodes" which date back to 2001, but with the addition of the "The estimate of the population per hectare exceeds five people." criterium added in 2003. To divide into localities where applicable high density postcodes dating back to 1981 are given a locality value based on whether they were previously part of a locality. --Criticalthinker (talk) 11:06, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

Locality is a distinct town, village, city etc. Settlement is an urban area. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eastwood Park and strabane (talk • contribs) 13:43, 24 September 2019 (UTC)