Ancestory

Scottish clans — the complete index

A complete A–Z enumeration of 281 Scottish clans and families. So far 8 have full, sourced pages (Donald, Campbell, Fraser); the rest are listed here and will be built out over time. Names in bold link to a page.

Joan Blaeu's 1654 map 'Scotia Regnum': a hand-coloured map of the Kingdom of Scotland with the Highlands, Hebrides, Orkney and Shetland.
Joan Blaeu, Scotia Regnum (1654), after Robert Gordon of Straloch — the homeland of the clans as the 17th century mapped it. Joan Blaeu / Robert Gordon of Straloch, 1654 · Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

One honest caveat on the count: the “500 clans” often quoted includes many septs and spelling variants. This list is the set of distinct clans and families recorded in Wikidata and Wikipedia’s “List of Scottish clans” — a more conservative, de-duplicated figure. Clan branches (e.g. the several houses of Clan Donald) are listed as their own entries.

Recognised chiefs. 160 of these have a chief recognised by the Court of the Lord Lyon; 71 are armigerous (a recognised clan or family, but with no currently recognised chief); 50 are not recorded either way here. chief armigerous unrecorded

Chief status follows Wikipedia’s list, which reflects Court of the Lord Lyon determinations; chiefships are recognised, lapse and revive over time, so treat this as indicative and confirm current status with the Lord Lyon or the Standing Council of Scottish Chiefs.

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

R

S

T

U

W

Y

Sources & attribution

Enumeration compiled from Wikidata (CC0) and the Wikipedia “List of Scottish clans” (CC BY-SA; clan names reproduced as factual data). Chief recognition is a matter for the Court of the Lord Lyon; recognised-chief status will be added per clan as pages are built.