Scotland is home to over 1500 castles but it's thought there may have been as many as 3000 castles! Let's take a closer look at some historic Scottish castles, who lived in them, and how they were built!

There is no "exact" number of castles in Scotland because the definition of what constitutes a "castle" can vary significantly among historians and archaeologists. However, it is widely estimated that there have been roughly 3,000 castles across the Scottish landscape throughout its history. Some estimates suggest that at the peak of castle-building, there may have been one for every 100 square miles. Today, approximately 2,000 of these are still identifiable, ranging from world-famous, fully intact strongholds like Edinburgh Castle and Stirling Castle to "motte-and-bailey" earthworks or crumbling ruins that are little more than a pile of stones in a field. Organizations like Historic Environment Scotland and the Scottish Castles Association work to catalog these sites, but new discoveries of abandoned tower houses or defensive structures continue to shift the total. Whether a grand royal residence or a simple fortified tower house, these structures remain the most iconic symbols of Scotland's turbulent medieval and clan history.