Scotland
Webpages concerning "Scotland"
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Wikipedia-Article "Scotland"
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| Royal motto: Nemo me impune lacessit (English: No one provokes me with impunity) (Scots: Wha daur meddle wi me) |
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 Scotland's location within the UK |
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| Languages with Official Status1 | English Gaelic |
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| Capital | Edinburgh | ||||
| Largest city | Glasgow | ||||
| First Minister | Jack McConnell | ||||
| Area - Total - % water |
Ranked 2nd UK 78,782 km² 1.9% |
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| Population - Total (2001) - Density |
Ranked 2nd UK 5,062,011 64/km² |
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| Establishment | Kenneth I of Scotland (Cináed mac Ailpín), 843 |
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| Currency | Pound sterling (£) (GBP) | ||||
| Time zone | UTC, Summer: UTC +1 | ||||
| National anthem | Flower of Scotland (de facto)2 |
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| National flower | Thistle | ||||
| Patron saint | St Andrew | ||||
| Internet TLD | .uk3 | ||||
| Calling Code | 444 | ||||
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1. Scots was officially recognised as a "regional or minority language" under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, ratified by the United Kingdom in 2001, but it still lacks the level of state support given to English and Gaelic. |
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Scotland (Alba in Gaelic) is a nation in northwest Europe and a constituent country of the United Kingdom. The country occupies the northern third of the island of Great Britain and shares a land border to the south with England and is bounded by the North Sea on the east and the Atlantic Ocean on the west.
Scotland was a fully independent state until 1 May 1707, when the Act of Union 1707 resulted in an incorporating union with the Kingdom of England to create the Kingdom of Great Britain. Despite that, Scotland is still considered to be a country in its own right since many key national institutions were retained and have remained constitutionally entrenched ever since.
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Etymology
The name Scotland originally meant Land of the Gaels, but since the nation has had a civic rather than a monoculturally ethnic orientation for most of the last millennium, the word "Scot" is now applied equally to all inhabitants regardless of their ancestral ethnicity.
The English language name Scotland could date from at least the first half of the 10th century, when it was used in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. The word Scot- was borrowed from Latin. We cannot assume Scotland was being used here to mean anything other than Land of the Gaels, just like Latin Scotia. Scottish kings adopted the title Basileus/Rex Scottorum (= High King/King of the Gaels) and Rex Scotiae (King of Gael-Land) some time in the 11th century. The earliest attribution of the latter Latin title was by the Germany-based Irish writer Marianus Scotus, recording the death of King Máel Coluim mac Cináeda as Moelcoluim Rex Scotiae, for the year 1034. In taking this title, they were likely influenced by the style Imperator Scottorum known to have been employed by Brian Bóruma in 1005. In the early 13th century, the Scoto-Norman author of de Situ Albanie protested that Scotia was a corrupt word for what should be called Albania; but by then Scotia was becoming the norm in Latin, French and English; and hence Scotia and its derivitives prevailed in all languages except the Celtic ones.
History
- Main article: History of Scotland
The written history of Scotland largely began with the arrival of the Roman Empire in Britain, when the Romans occupied what is now England and Wales, administering it as a Roman province called Britannia. To the north was territory not conquered by the Romans—Caledonia, peopled by the Picts. The ancient Scots are traditionally believed to have originated from the Irish Kingdom of Dalriada in what is now roughly County Antrim in Northern Ireland, founding the Scottish Kingdon of Dalriada between the 3rd century and the 5th century. After centuries of warfare, the Kingdom of Scotland is usually regarded as having been first united in 843, by Cináed mac Ailpín, of Scottish Dalriada, who united the Scots and Picts by becoming King of the Picts. He is known to the modern English-speaker as King Kenneth I of Scotland.
![The harp (or clarsach) was an instrument associated with medieval Scottish culture. Gerald of Wales tells us that the Scots excelled even the Irish in the art, the "[Irish] people now look to that country as the fountain of the art" ( Topographia Hibernica, 94). We know that, even half a century after Gerald was writing, King Alexander III kept a royal harpist. This harp is one of three extant medieval Gaelic harps, and in now in the Museum of Scotland](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Celtic_harp_dsc05425.jpg)
In the following centuries, the Gaelic Kingdom of the Scots expanded to something approxiately corresponding with modern Scotland. The period was marked by comparatively good relations with the Wessex rulers of England, intense internal dynastic disunity and, despite this, relatively successful expansionary policies. Sometime after an English invasion of cumbra land by King Edmund of England in 945, the province was handed over over to king Mael Coluim I on condition of alliance. Sometime in the reign of King Idulb (954-62), the Scots captured the fortess later called Edinburgh, their first foothold in Lothian. The Scots probably had a degree of authority over Strathclyde since the later part of the 9th century, but the kingdom clearly kept its own rulers since one of Idulb's successors, Cuilén, died at the hands of the men of Strathclyde. Cináed II (971-95) began his reign by invading Britannia. The reign of Máel Coluim II saw the final incorporation of these territories. The critical year was 1018, when king Máel Coluim II defeated the Northumbrians at the Battle of Carham. In the same year, King Eogan (or Owain) Calvus died, leaving his kingdom to his overlord Máel Coluim. A meeting with King Knútr of Denmark and England around 1031, seems to have further secured these conquests.
The Norman Conquest of England in 1066 subsequently initiated a chain of events which started to move the Kingdom of Scotland away from its originally Gaelic cultural orientation. After the death of King Máel Coluim III, there was conflict to the succession. Domnall Bán, Máel Coluim's brother, and Donnchad II, Máel Coluim's son, fought it out. The Norman government of England supported candidates legitimised under primogeniture rather than tanistry, and successfully ensured that the sons of Máel Coluim III by the Anglo-Hungarian princess Margaret Ætheling would rule the kingdom, and their descendents after them. The role of Máel Coluim and especially Margaret was later promoted in dynastic "propaganda", and in the 13th century Margaret was even canonised. When the heavily Frankicised David I succeeded, Scotland gained something of its own "Norman Conquest". Having been previously established as one of the most important Anglo-Norman lords, David I was instrumental in introducing feudalism into Scotland and in founding burghs to enhance trading links with Continental Europe. By the late 13th century, scores of French and Anglo-French families had been granted Scottish lands, and many leading Scoto-Norman noble families held lands in both Scotland and England and swore fealty to the King of England on the basis of their English landholdings.
After the death of Queen regnant Margaret of Scotland, the last heir of Alexander III of Scotland, Scotland's nobility asked the King of England to adjudicate between rival claimants to the vacant Scottish throne, but Edward I of England, instead, attempted to install a puppet monarchy and exert outright control. The Scots resisted, however, under the leadership of Sir William Wallace and Andrew de Moray in support of John Balliol, and later under that of Robert the Bruce. Bruce, crowned as King Robert I on March 25, 1306, won a decisive victory over the English at the Battle of Bannockburn on June 23 - June 24, 1314, but warfare flared up again after his death during the second Wars of Scottish Independence from 1332 to 1357 in which Edward Balliol attempted unsuccessfully to win back the throne from Bruce's heirs, with the support of the English. Eventually, with the emergence of the Stewart dynasty in the 1370s, the situation in Scotland began to stabilise.
From roughly the end of the 14th century, Scotland began to show a split into two distinct cultural areas — the mainly Scots, or English, speaking Lowlands, and the mainly Gaelic-speaking Highlands. Galwegian Gaelic persisted in remote parts of the southwest, which had formed part of the kingdom of Galloway, probably up until the late 18th century. Historically, the Lowlands were closer to mainstream European culture, and had adopted a variant of the feudal system in the two centuries after the Norman Conquest of England with many leading Norman families such as the Bruces, Comyns and Stewarts awarded lands by the Scottish monarch to help implement feudalism. By comparison, the clan system of the Highlands formed one of the region's more distinctive features, with a number of powerful clans remaining dominant until after the Act of Union 1707.
In 1603, the Scottish King James VI inherited the throne of the Kingdom of England, and became James I of England. James moved to London, only returning to Scotland once. Although he subsequently styled himself as the King of Great Britain, this was a personal union: the two nations shared a head of state but remained separate kingdoms, with the exception of a brief period when Oliver Cromwell overthrew the monarchy and Scotland was under English military occupation. Eventually in 1707, the Scottish and English Parliaments enacted the Acts of Union, which merged the Kingdom of Scotland with the Kingdom of England, creating the Kingdom of Great Britain.
The Union dissolved both the English and the Scottish Parliaments, and transferred all their powers to the Parliament sitting in London which was then renamed the Parliament of the United Kingdom. However, many of Scotland's national institutions remained separate, notably the country's legal system and its national Presbyterian church; these distinctions remain to the present day. The Jacobite claimants to the British throne had remained popular in the Highlands and the NE of Scotland, particularly amongst Roman Catholics and Episcopalians. Two major Jacobite rebellions launched from the north of Scotland in 1715 and 1745 failed to remove the House of Hanover from the throne.
Following the Act of Union and the subsequent Scottish Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution, Scotland became one of the commercial, intellectual and industrial powerhouses of Europe. Its industrial decline following the World War II was particularly acute, but in recent decades the country has enjoyed something of a cultural and economic renaissance, fuelled in part by a resurgent financial services sector, the proceeds of North Sea oil and gas, and latterly the devolved parliament. In 1997 the people of Scotland voted to create a new devolved Scottish Parliament, subsequently established by the UK government under the Scotland Act 1998.
Government and politics
Government
As one of the constituent parts of the United Kingdom, Scotland is represented in the Parliament of the United Kingdom in London. The Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh has the power to govern the country on Scotland-specific matters and has a limited power to vary income tax. The United Kingdom Parliament retains responsibility for Scotland's defence, international relations and certain other areas. The Scottish Parliament is not a sovereign authority, and the UK Parliament could, in theory, overrule or even abolish it at any time. Queen Elizabeth II, head of state of the United Kingdom, is descended from King James VI, King of Scots, the first Scottish monarch to also be King of England (James I, King of England from 1603). While great controversy has simmered amongst the Scottish public over her official title since her coronation (many believe that, being the first Queen Elizabeth of Great Britain, she should use the regnal name "Elizabeth I"), the courts of Scotland have confirmed "Elizabeth II" as her official title.
For the purposes of local government, Scotland is divided into thirty two unitary authority districts. Popular folk-memory continues to divide Scotland into thirty three traditional counties.
Politics
- Main articles: Politics of Scotland & Politics of the United Kingdom
Historically the politics of Scotland have reflected those of the UK as a whole, although with some differences. For example, besides the main UK-wide political parties (Labour, Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats) a number of Scottish-specific parties operate. These include the Scottish National Party (SNP) which is Scotland's second largest party and forms the main opposition in Parliament to the Labour-Liberal Democrats coalition, as well as the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) and the Scottish Green Party. These parties became more of a force in Scottish politics after the establishment of the Scottish Parliament in 1998. Unlike England, which has more of a left/right split politically, the political right in Scotland currently has only 18 out of 129 elected members of the Scottish parliament.
The traditional political divides of left and right have also intersected with arguments over devolution, which all the UK-wide parties have supported to some degree throughout their history (although both Labour and the Conservatives have swithered a number of times between supporting and opposing it). However, now that devolution has occurred, the main argument about Scotland's constitutional status remains between those who support Scottish independence and those who oppose it. According to an opinion survey carried out for BBC Scotland by ICM research [1] 2005, only 33% of Scots currently support a move to full independence, while 63% are happy with the devolved status quo.
Scots Law
Scots Law differs from England's common law system. It is based on Roman law, which combines features of both civil law and common law. The terms of union with England specified the retention of this separate system. Barristers are called advocates. Judges of the high court for civil cases are also the judges for the high court for criminal cases. Lords known as "Barons" in England are known as "Lords of Parliament." Gentlemen known as "Barons" in Scotland are not members of the House of Lords, as their titles (although still legitimate) are based on the old system of feudal baronies.
Formerly, there were several regional law systems in Scotland, one of which was the use of Udal Law in Orkney and Shetland, based on Old Norse Law, which for the most part was abolished in 1611. Despite this, Scottish courts have acknowledged the supremacy of udal law in some property cases as recently as the 1990s. There is a movement to restore udal law[2] to the islands as part of a broader devolution of powers from Edinburgh. Various systems based on common Celtic or Brehon Laws also survived in the Highlands until the 1800s.
Geography
- Main article: Geography of Scotland
Scotland comprises the northern part of the island of Great Britain; it is bordered on the south by England. Scotland's territorial extent is generally that established by the 1237 Treaty of York between Scotland and England and the 1266 Treaty of Perth between Scotland and Norway. Exceptions include the Isle of Man, which is now a crown dependency outside the United Kingdom, Orkney and Shetland, which are Scottish rather than Norwegian, and Berwick-upon-Tweed, which was defined as subject to the laws of England by the 1746 Wales and Berwick Act.
The country consists of a mainland area plus several island groups, including Shetland, Orkney, and the Hebrides, divided into the Inner Hebrides and Outer Hebrides. Three main geographical and geological areas make up the mainland: from north to south, the generally mountainous Highlands containing Ben Nevis, Britain's highest mountain, the low-lying Central Belt, and the hilly Southern Uplands. The majority of the Scottish population resides in the Central Belt, which contains three of the country's six largest cities (Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Stirling) and many large towns. Most of the remaining population lives in the North-East Lowlands, where two of the remaining three cities (Aberdeen and Dundee) are situated. The final city, Inverness, is situated where the River Ness meets the Moray Firth, on the Great Glen Fault between the North-West Highlands and the Cairngorms.
Highest maximum temperature: 32.9°C (91.2°F) at Greycrook, near Newtown St. Boswells, Borders on 9 August 2003.
Lowest minimum temperature: -27.2°C (-17.0°F) at Braemar, Aberdeenshire on 11 February 1895 and 10 January 1982 and at Altnaharra, Highland on 30 December 1995. [3]
Geology
- Main article: Geology of Scotland
The northern and southern parts of the island of Great Britain became adjoined in the mid-Silurian about 420 million years ago, along the Iapetus Suture, which roughly follows a line running West to East from the Solway Firth to Northumberland. James Hutton (the "father" of modern geology) observed this classic unconformity at Siccar Point in Berwickshire and was the first to recognize the meaning of stratigraphy on this basis.
Before then, Scotland lay on the margin of the Laurentian continent, which included North America and Greenland. England and Wales lay some 40° of latitude further south, adjacent to Africa and South America in the Gondwanan continent. In the Early Ordovician, approximately 475 million years ago, England and Wales, on the Avalonian plate, rifted away from Gondwana and drifted northward towards Laurentia.
Major cities
The six designated cities in descending order of population size:
Scottish towns:
Waterways
- Major Rivers:
- Firths:
- Sea Lochs (fjords):
- Freshwater Lochs (lakes) include:
- Artificial & Enhanced waterways include:
Economy
- Main article: Economy of Scotland
Most Scottish industry and commerce is concentrated in a few large cities on the waterways of the central lowlands. Although heavy industry has declined, the high-technology Silicon Glen corridor has developed between Glasgow and Edinburgh. Edinburgh, on the Firth of Forth, is a cultural centre, the capital of Scotland, and one of the top financial centres in Europe. Glasgow is Scotland's leading seaport and is the fourth largest manufacturing centre in the UK, accounting for well over 60% of Scotland's manufactured exports, with particular strengths in shipbuilding, engineering, food and drink, printing, publishing, clothing and textiles as well as new growth sectors such as software development and biotechnology. The dominant sector of Glasgow's economy is the service sector, however, including finance and banking (it is one of Europe's top 20 financial centres), business headquarters, public administration, education, healthcare and one of the UK's largest commerce and retail districts.
The significance of coal, once Scotland's most important mineral resource, has declined. Oil and natural gas, however, gained prominence in Scotland's economy during the 1970s, with the growth of North Sea oil extraction companies. Aberdeen is the centre of the oil industry. Scotland is a net exporter of energy to the rest of the UK, with abundant electricity generation capacity. Other important industries in many towns are textile production (woollens, worsteds, silks, and linens), distilling, beer and fishing (including salmon from the Tay and the Dee, as well as the numerous coastal fishing towns and villages).
Only about one quarter of the land is under cultivation (principally in cereals and vegetables), but sheep raising is important in the less arable mountainous regions. Because of the persistence of feudalism and the land enclosures of the 19th cent., the ownership of most land is concentrated in relatively few hands (some 350 people own about half the land). In 2003, as a result, the Scottish Parliament passed a land reform act that empowered tenant farmers and communities to purchase land even if the landlord did not want to sell. Tourism is also very important throughout Scotland.
Finance in Scotland also features unique characteristics. Although the Bank of England remains the central bank for the UK Government, three Scottish corporate banks still issue their own banknotes: (the Bank of Scotland, the Royal Bank of Scotland and the Clydesdale Bank). These notes have no status as legal tender in England, Wales or Northern Ireland; but in practice they are universally accepted throughout the UK , as well as in the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands). The Royal Bank of Scotland still produces a £1 note, unique amongst British banks. The full range of Scottish bank notes commonly accepted are £1, £5, £10, £20, £50 and £100. (See British banknotes for further discussion)
Culture
- Main article: Culture of Scotland
Scotland has a civic and ethnic culture distinct from that of the rest of the British Isles. It originates from various differences, some entrenched as part of the Act of Union, others facets of nationhood not readily defined but readily identifiable.
Language
Scotland has three distinct languages: English, Gaelic, and Scots.
Almost all Scots speak Scottish Standard English. It is estimated by the General Register Office for Scotland that 30% of the population are also fluent in Scots, a West Germanic sister language to English.
Slightly more than 1% of the population are native Gaelic speakers, a Celtic language similar to Irish, almost always on a fully bilingual basis with English. Eilean Siar is the only unitary council region of Scotland where Gaelic is spoken by a majority of the population. An organisation called Iomairt Cholm Cille (http://www.colmcille.net) has been set up to support Gaelic-speaking communities in both Scotland and Ireland and to promote links between them. Gaelic lays claim to have been the original language of the early medieval Scoti, and medieval Gaelic became spoken everywhere in Scotland except the northern Isles and the south-east, the district formerly called Lothian, where Norn and Middle English respectively held sway. The language began to decline by the 13th century, but even in the 14th century King Robert I was using the language, and the language was known two centuries later by King James IV. Ironically, Eilean Siar - the modern bulkwark of the language - was one of the last areas in Scotland to be Gaelicised.
By the time of James VI's accession to the English throne, the Scottish Court and Parliament spoke and wrote in the language we call Scots. Scots had certainly been the main language of the Scottish court since the reign of James I, and almost certainly since the reign of Robert II. Today, Scots is often seen as simply a dialect of English, and similiarities with English have damaged the prestige and integrity of the language. Since Scots has lacked a strong national literary tradition since the Union of the Crowns in 1603, there are marked differences between regional dialects. There is a movement in the Aberdeen area to have "Doric" recognised as a separate language, since it differs from the Lothian based dialect adopted by the Lallans literary movement. In Orkney and Shetland, a Scandinavian orthography tends to be preferred for the local Norse tinged insular Scots dialects. This can lead to confusion with the extinct Norn language, a dialect of Old Norse, which finally died out in the late 18th century, on the island of Foula. Placename evidence indicates that Norn was formerly spoken in Caithness and on many Hebridean islands as well as in Orkney and Shetland.
The Scottish Parliament recognises English and Gaelic as official languages of Scotland, both receiving "equal respect" although not equal validity based on the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act 2005. The Scots language was also officially recognised as a "regional or minority language" under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages ratified by the United Kingdom in 2001, and the Scottish Executive, has promised to provide support in their Partnership Agreement 2003. The Scottish Language Dictionaries receive some state funding via the Scottish Arts Council.
Religion
The Church of Scotland (sometimes referred to as The Kirk) is the national church, but it is not subject to state control nor is it "established" in the same manner as the Church of England within England. It is, however, recognised as the national church by Act of Parliament - Church of Scotland Act 1921.
| Religion | Percentage of Population |
|---|---|
| Church of Scotland | 42% |
| No Religion | 28% |
| Roman Catholic | 16% |
| Other Christian | 7% |
| No Answer | 5% |
| Islam | 0.8% |
| Buddhism | 0.1% |
| Sikhism | 0.1% |
| Judaism | 0.1% |
| Hinduism | 0.1% |
| Other Religions | 0.5% |
The Scottish Reformation, initiated in 1560 and led by John Knox, was Calvinist, and throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, the Church of Scotland maintained a strict theology and kept a tight control over the morality of the population. The Church had an overwhelming influence on the cultural development of Scotland in early modern times. Because Calvinism does not adhere to the Liturgical Year, for example, Christmas was not widely celebrated in Scotland until the mid-20th century. The intellectual nature of Calvinism contributed greatly to the predominance of Scottish thinkers in the age of Enlightenment (see Scottish Enlightenment), but the Church's distrust of the sensual is seen as the reason why Scotland contributed little to classical music and art before the 19th century. Since the mid-19th century, however, the Church of Scotland has developed into a generally tolerant and heterogenous church with an interest in ecumenism. Other Protestant denominations, include the Scottish Episcopal Church, which forms a full part of the Anglican Communion, and the Free Church of Scotland, a Presbyterian off-shoot from the Church of Scotland adhering to a more conservative style of Calvinism.
Roman Catholicism, which survived the Reformation especially on islands like Uist and Barra (where roadside shrines can be seen similar to those in Ireland) despite the suppression of the 16th to late 18th centuries, and was strengthened particularly in the West of Scotland during the 19th century by immigration from Ireland, has now become the second largest Christian denomination after the Church of Scotland. Much of Scotland (particularly the West Central Belt around Glasgow) has experienced problems caused by the religious divide between Presbyterians and Roman Catholics. Some Scots maintain that sectarianism is still a significant issue in terms of discrimination in the workplace and violent incidents on the street (particularly in the aftermath of football games involving Rangers and Celtic).
Islam is the largest non-Christian religion in Scotland, although its numbers remain small. There are also significant Jewish (though higher in past decades) and Sikh communities, especially in Glasgow. Scotland also has a high proportion of persons who regard themselves as belonging to 'no religion'. Indeed, this was the second most common response in the 2001 census.
Sport
Home of Rugby internationals in Scotland
Scotland also has its own sporting competitions distinct from the rest of the UK, such as the Scottish Football League and the Scottish Rugby Union. This gives the country independent representation at many international sporting events such as the football World Cup and various rugby tournaments such as the Six Nations. Scotland cannot compete in the Olympic Games independently however, but Scotland does send its own team to compete in the Commonwealth Games.
Association Football is the most popular sport in the country, both played and watched. [[Hampden Park], the world's first and oldest international football stadium, holds several European attendance records including 149,415 watching a Scottish international. The Scottish Football Association is the second oldest national football association in the world, with the Scottish national football team playing and hosting the world's first ever international football match. The Scottish Cup is the world's oldest national trophy.
Scotland is considered the "Home of Golf", and is well known for its many links courses, including the Old Course. Established in 1754, The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews also codified the rules of golf.
As well as its world famous Highland Games, where several traditional events such as the McGlashan stones are now common in world strongman events, Scotland has also given the world curling, and shinty, a stick game related to Ireland's hurling, and similar to England's field hockey.
One of Scotland's indigenous sports.
Scottish professional rugby clubs compete in the Celtic League, along with teams from Ireland and Wales. However, the country retains a national league for amateur and semi-pro clubs. Shinty is run by the Camanachd Association and is played primarily in its Highland heartland, but also in most universities and cities.
Media
Scotland has distinct media from the rest of the UK. For example, it produces many national newspapers such as Daily Record (Scotland's leading tabloid), The Herald broadsheet, based in Glasgow, and The Scotsman in Edinburgh. Regional dailies include The Courier and Advertiser in Dundee in the east, and The Press and Journal serving Aberdeen and the north.
Scotland has its own BBC services which include the national radio stations, BBC Radio Scotland and Gaelic language service, BBC Radio nan Gaidheal. There are also a number of BBC and independent local radio stations throughout the country.
In addition to radio, BBC Scotland also runs two national television stations. Three independent television stations (Scottish TV, Grampian TV and ITV1 Border) also broadcast in Scotland. English-based ITV1 Border has had a more complex position, as it serves communities on both sides of the border with England, as well as the Isle of Man, and it now has separate news programs for each side of the border.
Miscellaneous
National Identity
Home of Scottish monarchs and official Scottish residence of UK monarchs for hundreds of years
Academic research consistently shows that most people living in Scotland regard themselves as being Scottish in terms of national identity, whilst not necessarily feeling the need to see that translated into the establishment of a fully-independent Scottish nation-state.
National symbols
- The Flag of Scotland dates from the 9th century, when a cloud formation in the form of a St Andrew's Cross appeared in the sky during the Battle of Athelstaneford in 832 and appeared to herald victory for the Picts and Scots over the Angles, making it one of the oldest flags in the world. Saint Andrew became the patron saint, thereafter. Although the Saltire now also forms part of the Union Flag, the national flag of the United Kingdom, it can still be found flying all over Scotland. There is currently a campaign within the Scottish Parliament to create a national holiday on Saint Andrew's Day, the 30 November.
- The Royal Standard of Scotland, a banner showing the old royal arms of the Kings of Scotland is also frequently to be seen, particuarly at sporting events involving a Scottish team. Often called the lion rampant (after its chief heraldic device), it is the property of the Queen and its use by anybody else is technically illegal. The banner is flown from Holyrood Palace and Balmoral Castle when the Queen is not in residence.
- The unicorn is also used as a symbol of Scotland. The Royal Coat of Arms of Scotland, used prior to 1603 by the