Inverness is a city in the Scottish Highlands in the north of Scotland. Long regarded as the de facto capital of the Scottish Highlands, it is the administrative centre for The Highland Council region whose headquarters are located close to the city centre.The Highland Council website . Retrieved 6 March 2006. A regional hub for healthcare, education and research, business and economic services, public administration, culture, music and entertainment, media, communications, transport and leisure, the city provides a range of services for the wider Highlands and Islands Region, a large hinterland encompassing a population of around half a million people and an area of some 39,911 km² or 51% of Scotland's total landmass.
Inverness previously served as the county town of the county of Inverness-shire before becoming the headquarters of the larger Highland Council region. With human settlement dating back to circa 7000 BC and permanent human settlement established by 5,800 BC, the city has remained a strategically important location since antiquity and has periodically experienced armed conflict. Today, Inverness lies near two important battle sites: the 11th-century battle of Blàr nam Fèinne against Norway which took place on the Aird and the 18th century Battle of Culloden which took place on Culloden Moor, the last pitched battle fought in the United Kingdom. Lying within the Great Glen (An Gleann Mòr) at its northern extremity, the city's River Ness flows from Loch Ness via Loch Dochfour before it empties into the Moray Firth where the historic Beauly Firth and Inverness Firth met at the Kessock Crossing. The northernmost city in the United Kingdom, it was granted city status in the year 2000 as a Millennium City, having become more prominent in its economic and population growth throughout the preceding decade.Undiscovered Scotland: City Status in Scotland
Following the early settlement of Inverness, the city became an established self-governing settlement by the 6th century with the first Royal Charter being granted by Daibhidh I mac Mhaoil Chaluim (King David I) around the year of 1160. Inverness and the surrounding country are closely linked to various influential clans, including the locally powerful Clan Mackintosh, Clan Fraser and Clan MacKenzie. Local clans unique to the city include Donnchaidh (Robertson) of Inshes, MacSheòrais (Cuthbert) of Castlehill, MacLean of Dochgarroch, Fraser of Culduthel and Leys, Baillie of Dunain, Shaw of Essich, and Forbes of Culloden.
Between 2001 and 2022, the population of the old urban core of Inverness west of the A9 (historically Rathad Mòr an Rìgh or the King's Great Highway), grew from 40,969 to 48,248. The Greater Inverness area, including areas not previously connected to the rest of Inverness, including Culloden, Balloch, Resaurie, Smithton and Westhill had a population of 56,969 in 2012. Four years later, the population had grown by 6351 to 63,320, an increase of 10%. Inverness is one of Europe's fastest growing cities, with over a quarter of the Highland population living within the city or in its surrounding areas. Recent planning decisions by the Highland Council have approved the construction of housing developments near Inshes which will establish an area of continuous urban land with the potential to provide clarity and continuity for the city's population and growth in the years ahead.
Inverness is noted for its high quality of life and the happiness rankings of its population, frequently ranking high for its quality of life and levels of happiness among its residents. In 2008, Inverness was ranked fifth out of 189 British cities for its quality of life, the highest of any Scottish city. The city was ranked the happiest place to live in Scotland in 2014 and 2015, 5th in terms of quality of life in 2015 repeating its 2008 place as the highest quality of life in Scotland, the second happiest place in 2023 and in 2024, the happiest place to live in the entire United Kingdom.
Prehistory and archaeology Much of what is known about Inverness's prehistory comes from archaeological work that takes place before construction/development work as part of the planning process.
Between 2009 and 2010, archaeological work in advance of the creation of flood defences to the south of the city at Knocknagael Farm by GUARD Archaeology discovered an archaeological site that showed humans had been living in the Inverness area from at least 6500 BC, the Late Mesolithic period. That same site showed people living/working in the area from the mid-7th millennium BC into the Late Iron Age (1st millennium AD) with most activity taking place in the Early Neolithic (4th millennium BC). The archaeologists also found a piece of flint from Yorkshire that showed that people in Inverness may have been trading with Yorkshire during the Neolithic.
Between 1996 and 1997, CFA Archaeology (then part of the University of Edinburgh) undertook excavations of crop marks in the west of Inverness in advance of the construction of a retail and business park. A Bronze Age cemetery was discovered in 1996 and in 1997 the archaeologists found the remains of a Bronze Age settlement and an Iron Age settlement, with an ironsmith. It is one of the earliest examples of iron smithing in Scotland. The Iron Age settlement had Roman brooches from the AD 1st–2nd centuries, indicating trade with the Roman Empire. Similarly, the Bronze Age site showed signs of metal production: finds included ceramic piece-moulds designed for the casting of Late Bronze Age leaf-shaped swords. A silver chain dating to 500–800 CE was found just to the south of Torvean, during the excavation of the Caledonian Canal, in 1809.. Silver chain was found at when digging the Caledonian Canal in 1809.
History
Picts Inverness was one of the chief strongholds of the Picts. In AD 569, it was visited by St Columba with the intention of converting the Pictish king Brude, who is supposed to have resided in the vitrified fort on Craig Phadrig, on the western edge of the city. A church or a monk's cell is thought to have been established by early Celtic monks on St Michael's Mount, a mound close to the river, now the site of the Old High Church and graveyard.
Medieval The first royal charter was granted by Dabíd mac Maíl Choluim (King David I) in the 12th century. The Gaelic king Mac Bethad Mac Findláich (MacBeth) whose 11th-century killing of King Duncan was immortalised in Shakespeare's largely fictionalised play Macbeth, held a castle within the city where he ruled as Mormaer of Moray and Ross.
Inverness Castle is said to have been built by Máel Coluim III (Malcolm III) of Scotland, after he had razed to the ground the castle in which Mac Bethad mac Findláich had, according to much later tradition, murdered Máel Coluim's father Donnchad (Duncan I), and which stood on a hill around 1 km to the north-east.
The strategic location of Inverness has led to many conflicts in the area. Reputedly there was a battle in the early 11th century between Malcolm III and Thorfinn the Mighty at Blar Nam Feinne, to the southwest of the city.. Blar Nam Feinne is on Cnoc na Moine ().
Inverness had four traditional fairs, including Legavrik or "Leth-Gheamhradh", meaning midwinter, and Faoilleach. William the Lion (d. 1214) granted Inverness four charters, by one of which it was created a royal burgh. Of the Dominican friary founded by Alexander III in 1233, only one pillar and a worn knight's effigy survive in a secluded graveyard near the city centre.
Medieval Inverness suffered regular raids from the Hebrides, particularly by the MacDonald Lords of the Isles in the 15th century. In 1187, one Dòmhnall Bàn (Donald Ban) led islanders in a battle at Torvean against men from Inverness Castle led by the governor's son, Donnchadh Mac an Tòisich (Duncan Mackintosh).. RCAHMS locate the battle of Torvean at Both leaders were killed in the battle, and Dòmhnall Bàn is said to have been buried in a large cairn near the river, close to where the silver chain was found.. The cairn at disappeared in the 19th or 20th centuries, it has also been claimed to mark the resting place of St Bean(Beóán) the Culdee. Local tradition says that the citizens fought off the Clan Donald in 1340 at the Battle of Blairnacoi on Drumderfit Hill, north of Inverness across the Beauly Firth. In the late 14th-early 15 century, Inverness was a symbol of the Duke of Albany's power. On his way to the Battle of Harlaw in 1411, Donald of Islay took the town and burned the bridge over the River Ness. Sixteen years later, James I held a parliament in the castle to which the northern chieftains were summoned, of whom three were arrested for defying the king's command. Clan Munro defeated Clan Mackintosh in 1454 at the Battle of Clachnaharry just west of the city.. Battle of Clachnaharry took place at . Clan Donald and their allies stormed the castle during the Raid on Ross in 1491.
Post-medieval In 1562, during the progress undertaken to suppress Huntly's insurrection, Mary, Queen of Scots, was denied admittance into Inverness Castle by the governor, who belonged to the earl's faction, and whom she afterwards caused to be hanged. The Clan Munro and Clan Fraser of Lovat took the castle for her.George Buchanan's (1506–1582), History of Scotland, completed in 1579, first published in 1582. The house in which she lived meanwhile stood in Bridge Street until the 1970s, when it was demolished to make way for the second Bridge Street development.
Beyond the then northern limits of the town, Oliver Cromwell built a citadel capable of accommodating 1,000 men, but with the exception of a portion of the ramparts it was demolished at the Restoration. A clock tower today called Cromwell's Tower is located in the Citadel area of Inverness but was actually part of a former hemp cloth factory built c. 1765.Alston, David. Slaves and Highlanders. Edinburgh University Press, 2021, p.223-224
Inverness played a role in the Jacobite rising of 1689. In early May, it was besieged by a contingent of Jacobites led by MacDonell of Keppoch. The town was rescued by Viscount Dundee, the overall Jacobite commander, when he arrived with the main Jacobite army, although he required Inverness to profess loyalty to King James VII.A. M. Scott, Bonnie Dundee (1989), pp. 104-105
18th century In 1715, the Jacobites occupied the royal fortress as a barracks. In 1727, the government built the first Fort George here but, in 1746, it surrendered to the Jacobites and they blew it up. Culloden Moor lies nearby and was the site of the Battle of Culloden in 1746, which ended the Jacobite rising of 1745–46.
In 1783, the year that saw the end of the American Revolution and the beginning of the Highland Clearances in Inverness-shire, Coinneach MacChoinnich (1758–1837), a poet from Clan MacKenzie who was born at Castle Heather, then known as Castle Leather (Caisteal Leothair),Edited by Michael Newton (2015), Seanchaidh na Coille: Memory-Keeper of the Forest, Cape Breton University Press. Page 517. composed the Gaelic poem The Lament of the North. In the poem, MacChionnich mocks the Highland gentry for becoming absentee landlords, evicting their tenants en masse in favour of sheep, and of "spending their wealth uselessly", in London. He accuses King George III both of tyranny and of steering the ship of state into shipwreck. MacChionnich also argues that truth is on the side of George Washington and the Continental Army and that the Scottish Gaels would do well to emigrate to the New World before the King and the landlords take every farthing they have left.Edited by Michael Newton (2015), Seanchaidh na Coille: Memory-Keeper of the Forest, Cape Breton University Press. Pages 52-59.
Industrial Revolution, the World Wars and end of the millennium