Collins Encyclopaedia of Scotland is a reference work published by Harper Collins, edited by the husband and wife team, John and Julia Keay.

History

Scots had provided the impetus for a number of well known references works, Chambers Dictionary

Chambers Dictionary

The Chambers Dictionary was first published by W. and R. Chambers as Chambers's English Dictionary in 1872. It was an expanded version of Chambers's Etymological Dictionary of 1867, compiled by James Donald...

 and Encyclopædia Britannica

Encyclopædia Britannica

The Encyclopædia Britannica , published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia that is available in print, as a DVD, and on the Internet. It is written and continuously updated by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 expert...

 amongst them (the latter still uses a Scottish thistle

Thistle

Thistle is the common name of a group of flowering plants characterised by leaves with sharp prickles on the margins, mostly in the family Asteraceae. Prickles often occur all over the plant – on surfaces such as those of the stem and flat parts of leaves. These are an adaptation that protects the...

 as a logo), but hitherto there had been no general purposes Scottish encyclopaedia.

Statistics

The encyclopaedia took seven years to compile and has appeared in two editions. The first edition, published in 1994, contained about a million words, nearly five hundred illustrations, and had 126 contributors, ranging from Derick Thomson

Derick Thomson

Professor Derick S. Thomson MA, BA, Dlitt, FRSE, FBA , known as Ruaraidh MacThòmais in his native Scottish Gaelic, is a Scottish poet, publisher, lexicographer, academic and writer. He is originally from Lewis, but has spent much of his life in Glasgow, where he was Professor of Celtic at the...

 to David Steel

David Steel

David Martin Scott Steel, Baron Steel of Aikwood, KT, KBE, PC is a British Liberal Democrat politician who served as the Leader of the Liberal Party from 1976 until its merger with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the Liberal Democrats...

, from Alan Bold

Alan Bold

Alan Norman Bold was a Scottish poet, biographer and journalist.He edited Hugh MacDiarmid's Letters and wrote the influential biography MacDiarmid. Bold had acquainted himself with MacDiarmid in 1963 while still an English Literature student at Edinburgh University. His debut work, Society...

 to Neil MacCormick

Neil MacCormick

Sir Neil MacCormick, QC, FBA, FRSE , or just Neil MacCormick, was a legal philosopher and Scottish politician. He was Regius Professor of Public Law and the Law of Nature and Nations at the University of Edinburgh from 1972 until 2008...

 and from Joy Hendry to Sir William Macpherson of Cluny. It has four thousand individual entries, and an index indicating further references in other articles.

The second edition was in 2000.

Articles

In the original edition, the first entry is Aaron Scotus

Aaron Scotus

Aaron Scotus, Irish abbot and musician, fl. late 10th century – 18 November 1052.-Background:Aaron was an Irish abbot and music theorist, the term Scotus at the time denoting a native of Ireland .-St. Martin's of Cologne:...

, and the last on the marquisate of Zetland (the only Z entry).

The aim seems to have been to have reasonably brief entries on most topics, but subjects that get lengthier ones, include Scotland's major cities (including the traditional city of Perth

Perth, Scotland

Perth is a town and former city and royal burgh in central Scotland. Located on the banks of the River Tay, it is the administrative centre of Perth and Kinross council area and the historic county town of Perthshire...

), association football

Football in Scotland

Association football is the national sport in Scotland and highly popular throughout the country. There is a long tradition of "football" games in Orkney, Lewis and southern Scotland, especially the Scottish Borders, although many of these include carrying the ball and passing by hand, and despite...

 and rugby in Scotland

Rugby union in Scotland

Rugby union is a popular team sport in Scotland. The national side today competes in the annual Six Nations Championship and the Rugby World Cup. The first ever international rugby match was played on March 27, 1871, at Raeburn Place in Edinburgh, when Scotland defeated England in front of 4,000...

, the Scottish Gaelic language

Scottish Gaelic language

Scottish Gaelic is a Celtic language native to Scotland. A member of the Goidelic branch of the Celtic languages, Scottish Gaelic, like Modern Irish and Manx, developed out of Middle Irish, and thus descends ultimately from Primitive Irish....

, Scots law

Scots law

Scots law is the legal system of Scotland. It is considered a hybrid or mixed legal system as it traces its roots to a number of different historical sources. With English law and Northern Irish law it forms the legal system of the United Kingdom; it shares with the two other systems some...

 etc. A wide variety of topics are dealt with, including figures from science, literature, philosophy, sport and history.

Less "obvious" topics which have entries include the Roman Emperor Agricola

Gnaeus Julius Agricola

Gnaeus Julius Agricola was a Roman general responsible for much of the Roman conquest of Britain. His biography, the De vita et moribus Iulii Agricolae, was the first published work of his son-in-law, the historian Tacitus, and is the source for most of what is known about him.Born to a noted...

 (who tried to invade Scotland), the hooded crow

Hooded Crow

The Hooded Crow is a Eurasian bird species in the crow genus. Widely distributed, it is also known locally as Scotch Crow, Danish Crow, and Corbie or Grey Crow in Ireland, which is what its Welsh name, Brân Lwyd, translates as...

, Berwick-upon-Tweed

Berwick-upon-Tweed

Berwick-upon-Tweed or simply Berwick is a town in the county of Northumberland and is the northernmost town in England, on the east coast at the mouth of the River Tweed. It is situated 2.5 miles south of the Scottish border....

 (which has a stormy past, lying right on the Border

Anglo-Scottish border

The Anglo-Scottish border is the official border and mark of entry between Scotland and England. It runs for 154 km between the River Tweed on the east coast and the Solway Firth in the west. It is Scotland's only land border...

) and medicinal plants.

Several appendices cover the schisms (and mergers) of Scottish presbyterian factions from 1700 to the date of publication, and also the Scottish royal line.

Second edition

The second edition contained over a hundred new articles, amongst them, ones on Billy Bremner

Billy Bremner

William John "Billy" Bremner was a Scottish professional footballer, most noted for his captaincy of the Leeds United team of the 1960s and 1970s. He has since been voted Leeds United's greatest player of all time and has a statue outside the South East corner of Elland Road...

 the footballer, Dolly the Sheep

Dolly the Sheep

Dolly was a female domestic sheep, and the first mammal to be cloned from an adult somatic cell, using the process of nuclear transfer. She was cloned by Ian Wilmut, Keith Campbell and colleagues at the Roslin Institute near Edinburgh in Scotland...

, the Scottish Parliament

Scottish Parliament

The Scottish Parliament is the devolved national, unicameral legislature of Scotland, located in the Holyrood area of the capital, Edinburgh. The Parliament, informally referred to as "Holyrood", is a democratically elected body comprising 129 members known as Members of the Scottish Parliament...

 and the politician John Smith

John Smith (UK politician)

John Smith was a British Labour Party politician who served as Leader of the Labour Party from July 1992 until his sudden death from a heart attack in May 1994...

.