Wikipedia:WikiProject Scottish Islands/Populated Islands

This is a list of inhabited islands in Scotland. The National Records of Scotland lists 93 inhabited islands in the 2011 census. They list a further 17 islands that are occasionally inhabited and "are included in the NRS statistical geography for inhabited islands but had no usual residents at the time of either the 2001 or 2011 censuses". There are an additional 5 islands that are either occasionally or permanently inhabited but are not listed by the NRS. It is not explicit why this should be the case - all are 'bridged' islands although some larger bridged islands are included. There are therefore a total of 115 Scottish islands that are occasionally or permanently inhabited.


 * F = populated freshwater island
 * N = no census figure available

Occasionally inhabited islands
The following are classified by the National Records of Scotland as "inhabited islands but had no usual residents at the time of either the 2001 or 2011 censuses."

The following islands were classified as inhabited in the 2001 census but not in 2011. By implication they are occasionally inhabited.

The following islands are not referred to by the National Records of Scotland, although it is clear that they all contain residential buildings in occasional or permanent use. The NRS do not provide a definition of an island, and it may be that some are excluded as they are bridged (although larger bridged islands are included in their listings).

A University of Notts PhD thesis by Robert Lenfert entitled "Long-Term Continuity and Change within Hebridean and Mainland Scottish Island Dwellings" (downloadable pdf here) has, on page 70, an aerial photo in which the author contrasts "a modern intertidal island dwelling on Grimsay" with two nearby crannogs. He describes it as NE of Loch Hornary, although the image shows a small cluster of buildings NW of there at and the causeway is off Fraoch-eilean, not Grimsay itself. This and the image at right suggest it is occasionally inhabited, at the very least. The aerial photo is much more suggestive of the place's original insularity than either this photograph or the Ordnance Survey map, which does not indicate MHWS reaching the causeway.