Talk:Scotland

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This article is written in Scottish English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, realise, travelled) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

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Frequently asked questions

Introduction

Issues relating to the geography and politics of the United Kingdom and nearby territories can be surprisingly complex and controversial, and the subjects raised in this FAQ regarding the Scotland article are best understood in this context. We aim to be enyclopaedic and neutral. We also recognise that reconciling diverse views can be hard work as common phrases are sometimes interpreted in different ways in different cultures. We ask that editors new to this page read the following with an open mind. Where necessary, please research the facts rather than simply jumping to conclusions based on what you "know to be true".

Lead section

Q1: Is Scotland a "country"?

A1: Numerous reliable sources support the view that Scotland is a country—see for example the article entitled Countries of the United Kingdom, and a table of references at Talk:Countries of the United Kingdom/refs. This view is shared with other reputable encyclopedias. There has been a long-standing consensus to describe Scotland in this way.

This is one of the most frequent questions raised by visitors to this talk page. However, in the absence of a formal British constitution, and owing to a convoluted history of the formation of the United Kingdom, a variety of terms exist which are used to refer to Scotland,^[1] England, Northern Ireland, Wales and the UK itself. Reliable and official sources support use of the word "countries", and this term has broadly won preference amongst the editing community. Note however, that a country is not the same as a "sovereign state", and that "constituent country" is also used in other parts of Wikipedia. The community endeavours to achieve an atmosphere of neutrality, compromise, and camaraderie on this issue.

Q2: Why don't we refer to Scotland as a "nation"?

A2: Widespread confusion surrounds the use of the word "nation". In standard British English, and in academic language, a nation is defined as a social group and not a division of land. This is also the approach taken in the article entitled nation, across Wikipedia and in other major encyclopedias (for example, the Scottish people and the Québécois are described as "nations"). The term Home Nations is generally used only in sporting contexts. It is not used in major reputable sources outside of sport.

Infobox-related issues

Q3: Why are two flags used?

A3: There have been extremely complex discussion about these matters. The Royal Standard of Scotland (commonly referred to as the "Lion Rampant") was used by the King of Scots until 1603. Today, its correct use is restricted to official representatives of The Monarch.^[2] The blue and white Saltire is the flag of Scotland and is widely used by national and local government offices and in numerous other less official capacities. As with other issues described here this outcome is to some extent a compromise solution that seems to suit all parties in that it identifies symbols of Scotland as an entity in its own right, whilst also emphasising the importance of the relationship with the United Kingdom.

Q4: Isn't Flower of Scotland the national anthem?

A4: There is no official Scottish national anthem. Although there is no doubt that Flower of Scotland is currently amongst the most popular unofficial national anthems in Scotland, it is not the only one, nor even the longest established.

Q5: What is the reference to the "Scots language" about?

A5: Scots is spoken by 30% of the Scottish population (approximately 1.5 million individuals) according to the 1996 estimate of the General Register Office for Scotland.^[3] It is recognised by the European Union's European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.^[4] By contrast, Scottish English is a variation of standard British English. Whilst the distinction is by no means clear cut, Wikipedia policy permits the use of Scottish English words and phrases where appropriate. Scots, on the other hand, has its own site: see the Scots Wikipedia.

Q6: Wasn't Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom the first Queen Elizabeth to reign over Scotland?

A6: Yes, but "Elizabeth II" is her legal title, as resolved in Scots law in the legal action entitled MacCormick v. Lord Advocate.

Related issues

Q7: What is the difference between "Great Britain" and the "United Kingdom"?

A7: See the article entitled "Terminology of the British Isles". Great Britain is the name of the largest island that the UK encompasses, and is not generally used in source material as the name of the sovereign state.

Q8: Isn't Northern Ireland a province, and Wales a principality?

A8: This view is supported by some sources, but the current consensus amongst the editing community is aligned to a greater body of work which describes both Northern Ireland and Wales as countries. However, the terms are not all mutually exclusive: a country can also be a principality or a province, and these terms are mentioned throughout Wikipedia as alternative names in afternotes.

References

^ Scottish Parliament. "Your Scotland questions; Is Scotland a country?". Scottish Parliament. Retrieved 2008-08-01. As the UK has no written constitution in the usual sense, constitutional terminology is fraught with difficulties of interpretation and it is common usage nowadays to describe the four constituent parts of the UK (Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland) as 'countries'.
^ The "Lion Rampant" Flag The Court of the Lord Lyon. Retrieved on 10 October 2008.
^ "Scotland's Languages" University of Glasgow. Retrieved 7 December 2008. The proportion is said to rise to 90% in the North East.
^ Both Scots and Scottish Gaelic are officially recognised as autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. See "European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages" Scottish Government. Retrieved 27 September 2007.

Template:Outline of knowledge coverage

Scotland was one of the Geography and places good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
April 14, 2006	Good article nominee	Listed
August 12, 2006	Peer review	Reviewed
December 29, 2006	Good article reassessment	Kept
May 12, 2007	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
October 2, 2007	Good article reassessment	Kept
January 25, 2008	Peer review	Reviewed
January 13, 2009	Good article reassessment	Kept
January 9, 2019	Good article reassessment	Delisted
Current status: Delisted good article

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Countries B‑class

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Countries, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of countries on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.CountriesWikipedia:WikiProject CountriesTemplate:WikiProject Countriescountry articles

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Here are some tasks awaiting attention:

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Cleanup : clean-up listing for Countries
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Other : add {{WPCountries}} to talk pages of related articles, and assess.

United Kingdom B‑class Top‑importance

	United Kingdom portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject United Kingdom, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the United Kingdom on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.United KingdomWikipedia:WikiProject United KingdomTemplate:WikiProject United KingdomUnited Kingdom articles
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Scotland B‑class Top‑importance

	Scotland portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Scotland, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Scotland and Scotland-related topics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ScotlandWikipedia:WikiProject ScotlandTemplate:WikiProject ScotlandScotland articles
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UK geography B‑class Top‑importance

	United Kingdom portal This article falls within the scope of WikiProject UK geography, a user-group dedicated to building a comprehensive and quality guide to places in the United Kingdom on Wikipedia. If you wish to participate, share ideas or merely get tips you can join us at the project page where there are resources, to do lists and guidelines on how to write about settlements.UK geographyWikipedia:WikiProject UK geographyTemplate:WikiProject UK geographyUK geography articles
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Celts B‑class Top‑importance

	Scotland is within the scope of WikiProject Celts, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of the ancient Celts and the modern day Celtic nations. If you would like to participate, you can edit this article or you can visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks or take part in the discussion. Please Join, Create, and Assess.CeltsWikipedia:WikiProject CeltsTemplate:WikiProject CeltsCelts articles
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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Scotland article.
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Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32: 30 days

Population

Sorry I tried to update the population figure but I mucked it up. Here's the new figure and the reference. 5,295,000 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-20754750

GA reassessment

Scotland

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • GAN review not found

Result: Delist Givin the size, scope and number of issues outstanding I feel the best way forward is to delist and allow interested editors to address the concerns without the added pressure of a reassessment. I will add a few comments in this close regarding the identified issues and how they relate to the GA criteria. I would say page numbers in books are required for verifiable. Reviewers and readers should be given all the information they need to find where the information comes from and having a short statement sourced to a large book does not usually meet the spirit of criteria 2. I would also say that going over 78 KB prose is not a reason to cut information in an article this broad. The other points hold and there are a number of outstanding maintenance tags on the article that will need to be dealt with before renominating. AIRcorn (talk) 08:27, 13 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Delist: This is a poorly maintained GA article that no longer meets the criteria. Many statements lack an inline citation, which might be acceptable if there was a "General References" section where readers could verify the information. There isn't, so it fails WP:V. In addition, a partial search of the references identified the following issues (see talk page):

Potentially unreliable sources:

~~Catholic.org: a WP:SPS. See this RSN discussion. Refs 2–5.~~ Removed
~~Orkneyjar.com: looks like a WP:SPS. Ref 44~~ Removed
~~Kinneil Estate: a wordpress blog. Ref 45~~ Removed
Rampant Scotland: looks like a WP:SPS. Refs 176 and 352.

~~Partial citation without enough information to identify the source: 43 (Bryson), 121 (Evans), 122 (Sereny)~~ Fixed this
Many of the book citations are missing page numbers. This isn't necessarily an issue with the GA criteria, but in some cases these references are supporting direct quotes or controversial information, such as "the one internationally recognised Scottish landmark". How are readers supposed to verify that without a page number?
Some citations do not support the content that they purport to, for example the citation in "Scottish Music" supports very little of the content in that section; the paragraph beginning with "Scotland's universities are complemented" is not supported by the ref.
There is overcite in some cases, see cleanup tags on the article.
The coverage in some areas is inadequate: for example, the section on Scottish literature does not mention any Gaelic writers, such as Nobel Prize nominee Sorley MacLean. Added content on MacLean. (Goodreg3 (talk) 22:41, 28 December 2023 (UTC))[reply]
Also, some areas are too detailed for WP:SUMMARY: ~~an entire paragraph (!) about what titles British monarchs are allowed to use in Scotland.~~ Fixed this, at least.
"Other currently less popular candidates for the National Anthem of Scotland include Scotland the Brave, Highland Cathedral, Scots Wha Hae and A Man's A Man for A' That"—potentially controversial information without a citation. This has been fixed

I have sourced those "candidates" to a couple of newspaper articles and rewritten that sentence. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 15:18, 25 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

~~Direct quote with no source or citation: "largest electrified rail network outside London"~~ Removed
Some of the prose is not NPOV: for example, "unrivalled anywhere in Britain", "Thoughtful Scots pondered their declension, as the main social indicators such as poor health, bad housing, and long-term mass unemployment, pointed to terminal social and economic stagnation at best, or even a downward spiral. Service abroad on behalf of the Empire lost its allure to ambitious young people, who left Scotland permanently." Removed
Another POV issue is the paragraph beginning: "During the Second World War", which omits the fact that German bombers targeted England more because it was closer and therefore easier to get to.

I have rewritten the sentence regarding the Blitz. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 09:22, 25 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

~~Some parts of the article do not meet MOS:IMAGELOC: sandwiching in the "Demographics" section~~ Improved.

I could go on. There's been a little bit of progress in the last week towards resolving these issues, but not nearly enough to bring it up to GA quality. b ui dhe (formerly Catrìona) 17:38, 9 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

~~The copyvio report found some close paraphrasing that needs to be fixed.~~ b ui dhe (formerly Catrìona) 20:52, 9 January 2019 (UTC) Removed copyvio. b uidhe 21:27, 24 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

We've made some progress, but there are still no sections for art or architecture. At 78k prose after significant cuts, the article will have to be trimmed to make room for the additions. I suggest that the history and government sections could be cut somewhat. b uidhe 21:15, 27 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The verifiability problems are extensive. I just checked more than a dozen references and found that a majority did not support the content. Furthermore, the excessive use of official sources is evident; a close look proves that they are used to support opinion-based statements such as ~~"The MOU lays emphasis on the principles of good communication, consultation and co-operation".~~ Removed. This article is very far from passing the verifiability criterion of the Good Article criteria. b uidhe 01:35, 29 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Other Athnistity

the other section in asininity of Scotland needs to be fixed — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gordon78563648 (talk • contribs) 18:35, 14 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Royal Coat of Arms in Scotland

Just a suggestion - the Royal Coat of Arms version applies specifically in Scotland, so like the UK's page, think should be included in the infobox.

Scotland hasn't had a Royal Coat of Arms since the Kingdom of Scotland and Kingdom of England were unified in 1707 to form the Kingdom of Great Britain. Since then, the Royal coat of arms of Great Britain then Royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom have continued to have a separate design used in Scotland, but they are the UK Royal Coat of Arms used in Scotland, as opposed to Scotland's Royal Coat of Arms used in the UK. As such, they are not appropriate for this article as they are symbolic of the UK, as opposed to being symbolic of Scotland. 195.171.9.239 (talk) 22:23, 29 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

Queen Elizabeth II in March 2015.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 12:25, 27 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

[IsScotland?-1] Scottish Parliament. "Your Scotland questions; Is Scotland a country?". Scottish Parliament. Retrieved 2008-08-01. As the UK has no written constitution in the usual sense, constitutional terminology is fraught with difficulties of interpretation and it is common usage nowadays to describe the four constituent parts of the UK (Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland) as 'countries'.

[2] The "Lion Rampant" Flag The Court of the Lord Lyon. Retrieved on 10 October 2008.

[3] "Scotland's Languages" University of Glasgow. Retrieved 7 December 2008. The proportion is said to rise to 90% in the North East.

[4] Both Scots and Scottish Gaelic are officially recognised as autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. See "European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages" Scottish Government. Retrieved 27 September 2007.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]