Historic Environment Scotland (HES) enables public access to a wealth of information on Scotland’s historic environment via a number of websites and as open data.
In particular, the National Record of the Historic Environment (NRHE) is made available via Canmore which contains:
“more than 320,000 records and 1.3 million catalogue entries for archaeological sites, buildings, industry and maritime heritage across Scotland.”
Canmore records are also available for download.
Using Canmore records as a proxy for Scotland’s historic heritage (archaeological sites and historic buildings/industry), the maps below explore the simple distribution of historic heritage across Scotland. Maritime historic heritage and those Canmore records not intersecting the mainland and islands of Scotland have been omitted.
Distribution of Scotland’s historic heritage
The map below shows that Canmore records cover all of Scotland. The three 10km2 squares with the highest number of Canmore records identify the centers of Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen. Other Scottish cities, small towns and environs are also identifiable through their high number of Canmore records.
The charts below give an urban, small town and rural perspective. Not unexpectedly the:
– highest number of Canmore records are found in remote/accessible rural areas
– highest density of Canmore records is found in large urban areas.
A distribution by Data Zone is shown in the map below and gives a different perspective. Three Data Zones on Na h-Eileanan Siar (2) and Shetland Islands (1) have the most Canmore records, closely followed by a patch work of other Data Zones on the islands and mainland (including some not visible on the map due to their small size).
Data Zones without Canmore records are small in size and are found predominantly in the central belt and in proximity to other urban areas/small towns.
Looking at the Canmore record density in Data Zones, the map below shows that at a country scale there is a more uniform perspective. Data Zones with a high density of Canmore records tend to be restricted to compact urban area/small town Data Zones and bring out the main historic extent and structure of Scotland’s city centers.
From a local authority perspective the density of Canmore records highlights the four city local authorities (Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee and Aberdeen).
geo.fyi 