What's the Largest Town in Scotland? 21 biggest Scottish towns by population - from Newton Mearns to Paisley

There is no strict legal definition of what constitutes a town in Scotland, with different local authorities using different metrics to define them over the years.

What is certainly not the case is that towns are always smaller than cities – a total of 12 towns are home to more people than Scotland’s smallest city of Stirling.

Meanwhile, the Highland settlement of Dingwall is classed as a town, even though it has a population smaller than the village of Bishopton (whose suffix would suggest it was a town to further muddy the waters).

These 21 places are definitely towns though – and are the largest in Scotland by population.