Talk:Scotland

Scottish Regions

Removed links to Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen from under the 'Regions' heading because:

• there are no recognised regions of Scotland with those names
• the articles referenced describe the cities of those names, not regions
• the links were in any case duplicated under the 'Cities' heading.

That leaves us with the Orkneys and the Hebrides as the only Scottish regions. I think there are genuine regions on the Scottish mainland, but I'm quite sure they are not Glasgow, etc. My experience of living in Scotland is 15 years back; then I would have probably plumped for 'Strathclyde', 'Lothian', etc. Would this still be a good regional breakdown?. -- (WT-en) chris_j_wood 00:56 May 26 2004

So, one way we've figured this stuff out in the past is with a hierarchical list on the talk page. I think Talk:Switzerland and Talk:Southern California/Hierarchy have some examples. Maybe try and propose an idea here for brainstorming? I have to admit that I know next to nothing about Scotland. --(WT-en) Evan 01:15, 26 May 2004 (EDT)

Ok. My suggestion is below, in heirarchic form. I think we should try and keep this to a single level of regions, as personally I find the rather deep heirarchies currently seen in (eg.) England or London impenitrable to the casual reader.

Scotland has been through several largely contradictory local government reoganisations in the last few decades (a bit like an edit war in slow motion) so I have chosen to more or less completely ignore local government boundaries and go for the regions that I remember locals talking about when I was there, and which I think correspond with cultural and scenic differences.

• Central Belt
  • Edinburgh
  • Glasgow
  • Stirling
• Borders
  • Peebles
• Hebredean Islands
• Highlands
  • Fort William
  • Inverness
  • Oban
  • Perth
• North East Scotland
  • Aberdeen
  • Dundee
  • St Andrews
• Orkney Islands
• Shetland Islands
• South West Scotland
  • Ayr
  • Dumfries
  • Locherbie

The one that might cause controversy here is lumping both Glasgow and Edinburgh into a single 'Central Belt' region, given the historic emnity between the two cities. But from an external viewpoint (and that is surely what wikivoyage is about) they are almost twin cities only an hours drive apart.

But hey, I'm only an Englishman who spent two years in Glasgow 15 years ago. Roll on some Scots wikivoyagers. -- (WT-en) chris_j_wood 17:15 26 May 2004

I confess I don't understand the principle (or point) of wikivoyage's heirarchical decomposition of countries, but from a tourist's perspective the governmental map is fairly useless. As one of the aforementioned Scots wikivoyagers, I'd suggest something like:

• Central Belt (Edinburgh, Stirling, Glasgow) - highly urbanised with culture, history, nightlife mixed liberally
• Borders (really the SE) Jed, Melrose, Berwick
• SW (Lanark, Ayr, Troon, Dunfries)
• East coast & Tayside (Fife, St Andrews, Perth, Dundee, Aberdeen)
• West coast (Loch Lomond, Kintyre, Oban, Fort William, Torridon, Ullapool)
• Western Islands (from Islay and Jura to Mull, Skye, Harris, Lewis, and the archipelago of sheep-encrusted hillocks in between)
• Orkney & Shetland
• The highlands (Fort William, the Great Glen, Inverness, Speyside, Aviebore, Dornoch, and the NW highlands)

These are distinct by character (insofar as one can make such clumsy categorisations). It strikes me that if someone were fairly short of time and wanted to see as much of the character of Scotland as possible, they'd be far better picking one of the central belt cities, one of the coasts, and either the islands or the highlands, rather than both Glasgow and Edinburgh, say. -- (WT-en) Finlay McWalter 19:36, 29 Nov 2004 (EST)

Scotland

Most of this entry is nonsense.

This section -

Towns

   * Ardrossan
   * Brodick
   * Kilwinning
   * Lochranza
   * North Berwick
   * Saltcoats
   * Whiting Bay

Someone from Lanarkshire Council has been editing this, as most of these places are of no merit whatsoever.

The culture section of this entry is diabolical. Irvine Welsh is the only name mentioned? What happened to Walter Scott, R. Louis Setevnson, Muriel Spark, Robert Burns, David Daiches, Edwin Morgan, Sorley Maclean...?

If there are improvements you'd like to make, plunge forward and do it! -(WT-en) Todd VerBeek 20:53, 10 June 2006 (EDT)

Cities

I've cut the number of cities/towns down to 9 as per Project:Country article template. The 6 cities obviously should be included, but I'm not 100% sure which 3 towns to include. At the moment I've listed Perth (the one I'm most confident about), Dumfries (as a base for exploring both the South West and Borders) and Lanark (as New Lanark is a major tourist destination) but I'm not Scottish so I may have missed a more obvious destination. If I have either let me know or change the list and I'll upload a new version of the map. --(WT-en) Paul. 11:23, 19 November 2006 (EST)

Scottish-Gaelic phrasebook?

Although I know Scotland (like Wales) is almost entirely bilingual, should there be a gaelic phrasebook? The language is mostly isolated to the Hebredees and places in the northwest of the highlands; but I'm sure it wouldn't go unappreciated if a tourist to the ares was able to ask questions are speak very basic phrases of the language. Could somebody who speaks Gaelic create a gaelic phrasebook please. Thanks.

I doubt this is necessary. Scotland *is* bilingual, but not in Gaelic and English. The majority languages are English and Scots, but nothing is signed in Scots and almost everyone can switch into 100% english on demand. Whether or not a visitor will understand them is another matter. The gaelic roadsigns are for the tourists, and they are signed in english as well. Maybe one day Gaelic will have recovered enough for it to be spoken widely, here's hoping.

Also of course written Gaelic is notoriously difficult for an english speaker to pronounce. Tìoraidh ;-) 77.72.111.161 05:53, 2 July 2009 (EDT)

re: "Cèilidh = informal celebration, party (pr. KAY-lay)"

fwiw, I would suggest the pronounciation would be KAY-lee. See https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=how+do+you+pronounce+C%C3%A8ilidh&tbm=vid

Countries or Home Nations?

I see this article has recently been changed, along with Wales and England, to avoid refering to them as countries because they aren't listed on the List of countries, and calling them the Home Nations instead. I'm torn on this one - I see the logic, but a lot of Scots will object if you tell them Scotland's not a country. I think they probably are countries, countries in union, and so I guess that means they should be added to the list of countries. Any opinions? (WT-en) Andyfarrell 18:26, 18 December 2007 (EST)

I made those changes, subsequent to this and this. I think the "logic" is strong and the "reality" weak, but I have no problem with them being in or out, as long as they are all in or all out. ~ 203.144.143.4 01:45, 19 December 2007 (EST)

Bank holidays

I've been trying to tidy up the United Kingdom article a bit and I've reformatted the section there on bank holidays, which seemed a bit waffly before. I've given basic details on regional variations, but judging from the situation in Scotland is particularly complicated (not just legally, but in terms of actual practice), so I've said to see this article for more details. I don't feel capable of writing that (I have no personal experience), can anyone else? --(WT-en) Zorn 20:20, 8 July 2009 (EDT)

I live here, and I wouldn't want to attempt it. Other than Easter, Christmas and New Year, UK bank holidays are virtually ignored, in favour of local holidays, which vary from city to city. Here in Edinburgh, a visitor would only really notice the difference from there being less traffic on the roads due to the schools being off, the buses running a Saturday timetable, and the occasional smaller shops away from the city centre being shut. That's the only way most locals (other than public-sector workers or parents) realise there is a holiday as well! (WT-en) Tarr3n 05:38, 10 July 2009 (EDT)

Cheers, I've altered the United Kingdom article to say more-or-less what you just did.--(WT-en) Zorn 06:13, 11 July 2009 (EDT)

Respect for the scottish..

The respect section seems to be updated in this article more than any other usable travel information.

Yes, Scottish aren't always like they are depicted in the movies. Yes, they don't all run around in kilts, and have ginger hair. Travellers expecting any group of people to fit with any stereotype will be disappointed wherever they go. Australians aren't like Crocodile Dundee or Steve Irwin, English are neither like characters out of Dickens or Jane Austen. Need I go on? This is true everywhere, and it is patronising both to the traveller and to the Scottish. It is already covered in Respect.

Travellers expecting cultural stereotypes will be disappointed everywhere. --(WT-en) inas 21:08, 3 August 2009 (EDT)

Well said Inas. This respect section does my head in. I'm tempted to insert something like <!--Before editing this section please view the discussion at [[Talk:Scotland#Respect_for_the_scottish..]]--> at the top of the Respect section in the hope that will bring a bit of sense to it. Thoughts? (WT-en) Tarr3n 04:43, 4 August 2009 (EDT)

Worth a try - better than adding "Braveheart" to the spam list :-) --(WT-en) inas 05:12, 4 August 2009 (EDT)

Following yet another edit expanding this section, I've dived in and trimmed it down to what I hope is a sensible level. (WT-en) Andyfarrell 16:53, 20 September 2009 (EDT)

Cities list

Shall we put them in order of most-visited? (WT-en) Andyfarrell 02:27, 6 November 2009 (EST)

Normal WT practice would be the capital city first, followed by the rest in alphabetical order. So in that sense, the existing list is correctly ordered. There are only 7 cities listed though which is odd. Need two more. I would definitely suggest Perth as one. --(WT-en) Burmesedays 02:36, 6 November 2009 (EST)

We certainly don't need two more. The guideline is 7 plus or minus 2, so anywhere from 5-9 is fine. (WT-en) LtPowers 11:16, 6 November 2009 (EST)

OK poor choice of word... perhaps. But it is odd for a country with many developed city articles not to have nine listed on the main page. Perth, Elgin, Falkirk, Paisley.... and that's without even thinking. --(WT-en) Burmesedays 11:36, 6 November 2009 (EST)

Perth did strike me as an odd ommission; it markets itself as quite a tourist base. (I know technically the "fair city" is actually a town, but for our purposes it works, as with Dumfries.) Nowhere else seems to fit as a major destination worth including alongside the others. Fort William may be the closest - as a centre for the west highlands and based on the number of visitors going through there. (WT-en) Andyfarrell 11:59, 6 November 2009 (EST)

Fort William definitely a good option. I would therefore suggest Perth and Fort William (and supress my soft spot for dear old Elgin :) ). --(WT-en) Burmesedays 12:03, 6 November 2009 (EST)

Agreed, Elgin's lovely. Which reminds me I keep thinking a whisky tour itinerary would be a good idea, and then I keep forgetting to do anything about it. (WT-en) Andyfarrell 13:17, 6 November 2009 (EST)

Regions

Regions of Scotland appear to have been chosen based on administrative areas (Councils). Conventionally regions such as the Highlands are topographically defined. I wonder if this is possibly because maps are available the the administrative areas.

I live in what is referred to as Highland Perthshire. To describe it as being in North East Scotland is not quite as bad as describing Scotland as being part of England but it will provoke a heated debate. The placing of Perth and Kinross in the North-East perhaps dates bay the 1973 local government reorganisations

A number of whisky distilleries will have to modify their marketing if they are now longer considered to be in the Highlands.--Grahamstephen (talk) 12:59, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, we do have other things to take into account when devising a regional breakdown. Geography is part of it, but so is culture, relative size, number of attractions, etc. It's more of an art than a science, and it's entirely possible we got some things wrong. If you'd like to take a stab at an alternative regional breakdown, by all means; the current one appears to date to 2004 so it hasn't been reviewed in some time. LtPowers (talk) 19:18, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

The poor state of maps relating to Scotland

Hi all, I've been doing a tour of many region and county articles relating to Scotland, and I've found many of the maps to be unfit for purpose. The text of place names is often so small that even when the maps are blown up to huge sizes they remain illegible and unusable. Once particularly terrible example is on the Hebrides page; the map is massive but text is still so tiny. Because of the way the maps have been designed (i.e. without many details), there would be nothing relating to the dynamics of the map that would prevent the text from being considerably larger.

Why does this matter? Because these articles are designed to be printable and as such everything on them needs to be legible without having to follow hyperlinks to view larger versions of images.

Unfortunately I have neither the software nor the know-how to make the changes myself, so I'm appealing to the community. I've posted this here not only because the general map of Scotland (this one) also has the same problem, but because I guess that this must be a page that many relevant editors will have on their watchlists. I've also posted a request on the Request for maps page. So, what is to be done? ː-) --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 16:22, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

I've fixed the Scotland map now. The Hebrides map looks like a more complicated case. --ϒpsilon (talk) 17:38, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

This looks much betterǃ

Hi Ypsilon, thanks for your swift reply and action, but are you sure you made the changes to the Scotland map that you thought? I can see your new version by copying and pasting the file into this page but on the file's own page there doesn't seem to be any noticeable difference either to the text or the name "Edinburg". There is also no difference in the Scotland article. Has it gone wrong, or does it just take some time to update? Thanks, --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 20:38, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Ah, it's changed on the Scotland page now, so I guess it just takes time to update and I was just being impatient. It looks good nowǃ --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 20:45, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Good to hear :). The old map is supposed to be gone when someone uploads a new version to Commons. Your browser probably had the old version of Scotland and the file page cached. ϒpsilon (talk) 20:50, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, that's a bit of a complicated file to figure out. I've updated a number of the top level subregion maps now so the names are more legible and updated the destinations shown so it better matches the Cities showing in the guide. I'll work on the readability of the others as time permits. Cheers. -Shaundd (talk) 05:58, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Great work, thanks Shaunddǃ The Hebrides map in particular is looking so much better than it was. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 12:23, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

The Hebrides map has a misspelling of Castlebay. Also for Orkney and Shetland - it is wrong to refer to them as "The Orkneys" or "The Shetlands". That can annoy the locals. They should just be referred to as "Orkney" and "Shetland", or "The Orkney Islands" and "The Shetland Islands". --Vclaw (talk) 19:52, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Also a misspelling of "Ardrossan" on South West Scotland, and "St Andrews" on North East Scotland. --Vclaw (talk) 00:08, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

OK, maps are updated. Not sure how long it will take for the changes to flow through. Thanks for pointing those errors out. -Shaundd (talk) 05:20, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

[Unindent] No offense to anyone who spent a lot of time working on the Scotland map, but I have to object to the weirdness of showing sea where England is. This is misleading and ill serves the traveller. Could someone please update the map accordingly? Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:47, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Good point Ikan Kekek ! It does look like Scotland is floating by itself in the sea. It needs England to the south in some capacity. Andrewssi2 (talk) 21:05, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

User:Saqib hopefully still has the source file around and can add in northern England and Ireland. Powers ^(talk) 21:52, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the shout out. Have made the changes. --Saqib (talk) 02:08, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for making the changes. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:31, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

The time in Scotland

Any comments on my question here? Thank you. Ground Zero (talk) 03:51, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

Scots phrasebook - worth it?

Would it be worthwhile to create a phrasebook for the Scots language? The 1.5 million speakers (according to this article) makes it considerably more important than, e.g. Breton or Provençal (not to mention a little-known language called Gaelic...), even if its status as a language is controversial. But, if travellers attempted to use such a phrasebook to speak Scots in Scotland, would the reaction be welcomed as Breton would be in parts of Brittany, or would it be assumed they were trying to be funny or worse taking the piss? --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 10:22, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

I don't think that this is a priority, but I don't object if you want to create it. Scots is close to being understandable by English speakers - try the sample text in w:Scots language. Gaelic may be spoken by a lot less people, but it has more official recognition - there are Highers in it (separate school exams for learners and native speakers), and many road signs use it. Scots is now part of the Curriculum for Excellence, and a qualification in Scots Language has been offered since 2014. AlasdairW (talk) 22:52, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for your reply, Alasdair. I know that written Scots is easy to understand for English speakers, but from what I've heard (mainly poetry and other literary stuff on YouTube), spoken Scots is more of a strain on comprehension. I guess my main question is whether there is any value, in your opinion, for visitors to have an understanding of, or be able to speak, basic Scots. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 10:45, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

What the traveller encounters is not the older Scots tongue or Lallans, but English spoken with a Scottish accent (ie one of the many accents, plural). Currently many pages pat the locals on the head for speaking & understanding English: it feels like this should all be dealt with once under "Scotland / Talk" and have done. The regional / city entries would then just cover particular local usage. Glasgow deservedly has this, and it would be good to add the wondrous thing that is Aberdeenshire Doric or Buchan. Grahamsands (talk) 16:51, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Argyll

An explainer on recent work on Argyll and Bute, with proposals for next steps.

The administrative county of Argyll and Bute includes the Inner Hebrides: WV sensibly treats the latter separately. However some small islands very close to the mainland feel like they belong more to Argyll, so that’s where they now sit: Kerrera, Seil, Luing, Easdale, Scarba, Gigha and (the most marginal example) Isle of Lismore. Does this allocation seem reasonable?

“Cities” in this sparsely populated region need to cover a wide area. So: Campbeltown now covers the south end of Kintyre, from the Mull up to Carradale and the ferry pier at Tayinloan.

Tarbert (Loch Fyne) now covers north end of Kintyre, and Knapdale the other side of the west loch. I propose that it should also absorb Skipness, which has a dilapidated castle and not much else.

The coverage north of Knapdale is messy. Lochgilphead is the transport hub and has accommodation, but has no page. Tayvallich is basically a country lane ending at a ruined chapel. Kilmartin has outstanding megaliths and some accommodation, but is too small to be regarded as a hub. I propose building a page for Lochgilphead, to include Tayvallich, Crinan, Kilmartin and Ardfern.

Dunoon now covers the Cowal peninsula, everything south of A83.

Tarbet (Confused = Tarbert Loch Fyne) now covers Arrochar. I propose it absorbs all the itsy-bitsy places on Loch Lomond west bank, ie Luss, Inverbeg and Ardlui.

Once these are sorted, it will be easier to rationalise Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park. Grahamsands (talk) 20:52, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for all your work on these articles. It is good to see the "cities" expanded to cover the area around.

Personally I would have kept Isle of Lismore in the Inner Hebrides, but I have only visited on the longer ferry from Oban, and I expect those that have used the shorter ferry would have a different view.

Lochgilphead does look to be a gap in our coverage - it is the "County Town" of Argyll and Bute as that is where the council meets.

Tarbet (Confused = Tarbet (Loch Lomond)) is possibly too far away to absorb both Inverbeg and Ardlui. Ardlui to Luss is 16 miles, and so is hardly a short stroll between listings. I think that Ardlui could be merged in to Tarbet. However I would move Inverbeg to Luss, which should have more coverage as it is a popular day trip destination from Glasgow. AlasdairW (talk) 22:23, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

DONE. If Lismore feels Hebridean then that's where it belongs. Luss and Lochgilphead are new pages, by & by they could do with new banner pix. Grahamsands (talk) 18:30, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

FYI, there is {{template:Done}}, which you can use if you want. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 18:40, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for a lot of good work. I have changed the banners. AlasdairW (talk) 22:30, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

Dulnain Bridge

Dulnain Bridge is rated "usable" yet is thin on content. There's accommodation but the only sight is, um, some rocks? (And not even brightly painted like at Millport.) I propose it merges into Grantown-on-Spey which is only 3 miles east - that page could also cover Nethy Bridge and Cromdale. Aviemore could cover Boat of Garten and Broomhill, which keeps the steam railway on one page. Grahamsands (talk) 08:12, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

This looks a reasonable page to merge, please start a discussion on Talk:Dulnain Bridge, just in case there are any locals watching. AlasdairW (talk) 09:54, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Merger done. Grahamsands (talk) 13:15, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Time formatting

I've been meaning to raise this question for a while. When I was in Scotland last autumn, I checked on the use of 12-hour clock and 24-hour clock times in Scotland. In Oban, I looked at a random sample of 25 schedules of shops (both local independents and chains), banks, cafes, a parking sign, etc. None of them were American chain outlets. 20 of them used the 12-hour clock, and the remaining 5 used the 24-hour clock. In Fort William, I checked 20 signs, including a few churches, and found 15 used the 12-hour clock and 5 used the 24-hour clock. In Glasgow, 16 12-hr, 4 24-hr. In St Andrews, 19 12-hr, 6 24-hr.

Pretty consistently then, I was observing 75-80% for 12-hr clock. I think that our advice for time formatting should be changed to reflect that. Ground Zero (talk) 14:49, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

It seems a shame that you went to such trouble, but there's no Scotland formatbox on here to change. The UK box already mandates 12-hr clock.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 18:17, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Good point, but I recall that there was discussion somewhere where someone claimed that Scotland is different from the rest of the UK, which is obvious in general terms, but specifically in time formatting I think it's not. Most of our Scotland articles seem to use the 24-hr clock, which I think reflects the personal preference of some editors rather than common usage. Ground Zero (talk) 19:15, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

In the past, I have definitely been under the same impression that the 24-hr clock was recommended for Scotland.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 07:33, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Climate

I know many will see this as obvious, but should we not gently remind people that Scotland is, for many people, not a great place to visit from November to March if you are used to a hot climate? It's not unreasonable to warn people that, like MUCH of Northern Europe, Scotland is often windy, rainy and for the months mentioned, mostly dark. Only Americans who think London is due east of Washington DC would really be shocked by that, but there seems to be quite a lot of those people. 2A0A:EF40:CE5:6201:F4E4:7FB1:8F3F:8BFF 16:57, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

I think any country article should have a section on climate (as subsection of Understand). I won't be surprised for it being rainy, windy and dark in winter (I am from Northern Europe), but I'd still want to know whether rain gear and a woollen pullover would suffice for a visit in January. –LPfi (talk) 17:32, 28 July 2024 (UTC)