Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Council tax at Band D comes to £1,686. 3,971 residents make their home in this town in Aberdeenshire, Scotland.
Housing is within reach: a typical home costs £120,200 and rent runs £869 a month. It also does well on walkability — 22% of commuters walk, cycle or take public transport. Health outcomes fall short of most towns: life expectancy is 76.5 for men and 78.4 for women. Schools are weaker too: school leavers’ results beat a tenth of Scottish towns.
Figures: prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years · commuting, Census 2022 · life expectancy, ONS. Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Banff has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below.
The 3 things Banff does most differently from other towns.
Each subject compared with the 2,160 UK towns with an overall grade (schools within Scotland), ordered by how far Banff is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Banff has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 231 buildings inside Banff’s locality, 11 of them in the top category, and 2 scheduled monuments.
The archive holds 3 old photos and postcards going back to 1890.
Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Banff.
Private renters make up 8% of households. Banff is the second cheapest of the 23 towns in Aberdeenshire, at £120,200. 30% of households live in social housing. Owners make up 58% of households, below Aberdeenshire’s towns (70%) and close to Scotland’s towns (60%).
Registers of Scotland data-zone sale prices · Scottish Government council tax · Scotland’s Census 2022 tenure · OGL · The Scottish median is our estimate from data-zone sales, brought to early-2025 prices.
Its two schools are below. Banff’s one primary and one secondary have 1,184 pupils between them.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Banff Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 262 | – |
| Banff AcademyLargest secondary schoolSecondary | Secondary | 922 | C− |
28% of residents have a disability, above Aberdeenshire’s towns (20%) and Scotland’s towns (24%) alike. Of the 23 towns in Aberdeenshire, Banff has the second-largest share in bad or very bad health: 7.1%. Self-reported good health: 76% of the town’s residents.
| Census 2022 | Banff | Aberdeenshire | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 76% | 83% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 7.1% | 4.5% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 28% | 20% | 24% |
Scotland’s Census 2022, general health and disability · Public Health Scotland life expectancy by intermediate zone, 2020–24 · OGL · Because the census answers ignore age, a younger population lifts them; that is why the Health Grade is built on age-adjusted measures like life expectancy and early deaths.
Scotland’s Census was taken on 20 March 2022, a year after England and Wales’s lockdown census; 20% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
20% of workers worked mainly from home, below both Aberdeenshire’s towns (26%) and Scotland’s towns (31%). For every resident in work, Banff has 1.1 jobs.
Scotland’s Census 2022 (NRS), method of travel and distance to work · DWP claimant count · OGL
The heritage lists give each building’s grade but not its age, so we don’t say which is oldest.
Category B covers 112 of them, Category A 11. For its size, Banff has more listed buildings than any other town in Aberdeenshire. Conservation areas cover 29% of the town’s land, above Aberdeenshire’s towns (0%) and Scotland’s towns (1%) alike.
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
Just over one in ten residents are aged 15 to 24. People 65 and over make up a quarter of the town, above both Aberdeenshire’s towns (21%) and Scotland’s towns (19%). Line up the people of Banff by age and the one in the middle is 48.3. Degrees are held by 23% of adults.
52% women, 48% men
About 93 men for every 100 women. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women. Women live longer than men, so towns with many older residents have more women.
| Banff | Aberdeenshire | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 14% | 17% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 11% | 9.7% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 21% | 25% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 29% | 27% | 27% |
| 65+ | 25% | 21% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 22% | 16% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 9.9% | 10% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 11% | 10% | 11% |
| Degree level | 23% | 29% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · Aberdeenshire and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Banff. Best known first.
Museum · Historic Environment ScotlandDuff House200 m outside town, to the southeastAquariumAquariumMacduff Marine Aquarium1.6 km outside town, to the eastAttractionAttractionMacduff Distillery600 m outside town, to the southeastPhotos: each place’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
231 listed buildings in Banff, 11 of them in the top category.
34 Low Street, Townhouse: Photo: Anne Burgess · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Institution Terrace, Banff Primary School (Former Banff Academy) with Lamp Standards: Photo: Samuel Smiles · Public domain · Banff Castle including flanking pavilions and well, Castle Street, Banff: Photo: Alisdair Mclean · CC BY-SA 2.0 · 5 High Shore, Market Arms: Photo: Leslie Barrie · CC BY-SA 2.0
23 notable people were born in Banff.
Sandi Thom: P.g.champion, CC BY-SA 2.0 uk · Douglas Cochrane, 12th Earl of Dundonald: The original uploader was YUL89YYZ at English Wikipedia., Public domain · Eliza Brightwen: unknown carte de visite, Public domain · James Grant Duff: AnonymousUnknown author, Public domain · George Duff: Henry Macbeth-Raeburn / After Henry Raeburn, Public domain · Henry Robertson: Wright, Public domain
The nearest towns and villages, from National Records of Scotland’s 2022 localities. See them on the map →
Homes cost less than in most UK towns: the median sale over three years was £120,200, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 7th most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
That is 23.9 times the typical town in England and Wales for its size. Its Category A buildings include Banff Castle including flanking pavilions and well, Castle Street, Banff. It also has 2 scheduled monuments.
Banff has 2 state schools; places are handled by the local council.
Surface water isn’t included. Check a specific address on GOV.UK’s flood risk service.
Town in Aberdeenshire, Scotland
Banff is a locality of 3,971 people, in the Aberdeenshire council area. TownRatings uses National Records of Scotland’s 2022 localities as Scotland’s towns: the physical town, as people mean the word, rather than a council area, so its figures cover the town itself. Localities split the big settlements into their towns, as ONS’s 2022 boundaries split conurbations in England and Wales.
Built from NRS geography and Census 2022
Sources: Scotland’s Census 2022 (National Records of Scotland), output areas summed to the NRS 2022 locality · Registers of Scotland house price statistics, medians and quartiles of residential sales by 2022 data zone, 2004 to 2025 (the 2023 to 2025 headline brought to early-2025 prices with each council’s medians) · Scottish Government, Council Tax by band 2026-27; Scottish Water charges 2026-27 · Scottish Government, Recorded Crime in Scotland (crimes, offences and clear-up rates by council area, 2016-17 to 2025-26); Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation 2020v2 crime domain and SIMD crime indicators (2014/15, 2017/18), 2011 data zones with Census 2022 residents · ONS gross disposable household income by council (2022), scaled to household income on England and Wales’s councils, with Scotland’s Census 2022 households · DWP / ONS Claimant Count via Nomis (2022 data zones, January to August 2026), over residents aged 16 to 64 at Scotland’s Census 2022; council series since 2015 · Scottish Government school contact list (31 July 2026) and school summary statistics (pupil census, September 2025); School Information Dashboard leavers’ attainment by school, 2022-23 to 2024-25 (data.gov.scot) · TownRatings grades: our own summary of the data, ranked against UK towns only. All under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026 (ONS boundaries). Northern Ireland: Source: NISRA; contains Land & Property Services data and Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland information, © Crown copyright, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Scotland: contains National Records of Scotland data, Registers of Scotland data and SEPA data, © Crown copyright / © SEPA 2025, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.