Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Council tax at Band D comes to £1,579. In Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, this town has 3,219 residents.
Kirkcudbright’s strongest is cost of living: the median home sold for £183,400, 4.4 years of area income. The weak point is hazard risk — 6.4% of homes face a high or medium risk of river or sea flooding. Health is weaker too (C+): life expectancy 77.8 for men, 85.4 for women. Its listed buildings number 188, with 5 at Category A.
Figures: prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years · flood risk, SEPA · life expectancy, ONS. Kirkcudbright has no Safety Grade, because Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, and so no overall grade. The other subjects are graded below.
Each subject compared with the 2,160 UK towns with an overall grade (schools within Scotland), ordered by how far Kirkcudbright is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Kirkcudbright has no Safety Grade, because Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, and so no overall grade. The other subjects are graded below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
The 3 things Kirkcudbright does most differently from other towns.
Historic Environment Scotland lists 188 buildings inside Kirkcudbright’s locality, 5 of them in the top category, and 2 scheduled monuments.
The archive holds 1 old photo or postcard going back to 1890 and a map from c. 1893.
Explore the history →188 listed buildings in Kirkcudbright, 5 of them in the top category.
High Street, Tolbooth, Market Cross and Well: Photo: LornaMCampbell · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 12 High Street, With 10 High Street, Broughton House and Walls to Castle Dykes: Photo: LornaMCampbell · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Maclellan's Castle: Photo: Parrot of Doom · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Castlebank, Harbour Cottage Gallery: Photo: LornaMCampbell · CC BY-SA 4.0
Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Kirkcudbright.
Degrees are held by 31% of adults, about level with Scotland’s towns (32%) and above Dumfries and Galloway’s towns (23%). Young adults of 15 to 24 account for 8% of the town. Kirkcudbright has a median age of 56.3. Children are 12% of the town.
53% women, 47% men
About 89 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.
| Kirkcudbright | Dumfries and Galloway | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 12% | 15% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 8% | 9.9% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 17% | 22% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 26% | 28% | 27% |
| 65+ | 36% | 25% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 21% | 23% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 7.7% | 8.9% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 10% | 11% | 11% |
| Degree level | 31% | 23% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · Dumfries and Galloway and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
Its two schools are listed below. Some 628 pupils attend Kirkcudbright’s one primary and one secondary.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kirkcudbright Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 223 | – |
| Kirkcudbright AcademyLargest secondary schoolSecondary | Secondary | 405 | B |
Households that own their home make up 66%. No town in Dumfries and Galloway costs more to buy into than Kirkcudbright, at £183,400, the highest of 10. Private rents average £641 a month across the Dumfries and Galloway council area.
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.
Scotland’s Census was taken on 20 March 2022, a year after England and Wales’s lockdown census; 25% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
53% of commuters travelled under 5 km, between Dumfries and Galloway’s towns (60%) and Scotland’s towns (44%). On foot, by bike or by bus and train: that was how 28% of commuters travelled at the census. Also worth knowing: of the commuters living in Kirkcudbright, 39% work in the town itself. In 2026, 2.1% of 16 to 64s were claiming unemployment benefits.
Scotland’s Census 2022 (NRS), method of travel and distance to work · DWP claimant count · OGL
28% of residents have a disability, about level with Dumfries and Galloway’s towns (27%) and above Scotland’s towns (24%). At the census, 7.2% of people here described their health as bad or very bad.
| Census 2022 | Kirkcudbright | Dumfries and Galloway | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 76% | 76% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 7.2% | 7.7% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 28% | 27% | 24% |
Scotland’s Census 2022, general health and disability · Public Health Scotland life expectancy by intermediate zone, 2020–24 · OGL · Read these answers with age in mind: they aren’t adjusted, so younger places do better. The Health Grade uses age-adjusted measures, life expectancy and early deaths among them.
The heritage lists give each building’s grade but not its age, so we don’t say which is oldest.
At the top of the list, 5 are Category A and 69 Category B. Kirkcudbright’s listed buildings include High Street, Tolbooth, Market Cross and Well, Category A. Of the town’s land, 17% lies in conservation areas, above both Dumfries and Galloway’s towns (0%) and Scotland’s towns (1%).
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Kirkcudbright. Best known first.
Castle · Historic Environment ScotlandMaclellan's Castlein town
MuseumStewartry Museumin town
MuseumTolbooth Art Centrein townArt galleryArt galleryKirkcudbright Galleriesin townZooZooGalloway Wildlife Conservation Park400 m outside town, to the eastCastleCastleCumstoun Castle900 m outside town, to the northPhotos: each place’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
18 notable people were born in Kirkcudbright.
Edward Telfair: Iufr8eychsknc, CC BY-SA 4.0 · John McClure: The Graphic, Public domain · Alexander Manson: Lithograph by Maxim Gauci (1776-1854) after Thomas Barber (1771-1843), CC BY 2.0 · David MacMyn: Bassano Ltd, Public domain
Town in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland
Kirkcudbright is a locality of 3,219 people, in the Dumfries and Galloway 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
The nearest towns and villages, from National Records of Scotland’s 2022 localities. See them on the map →
| Town | People | Miles | Overall | Cost | Safety | Health |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kirkcudbright | 3,219 | — | — | A+ | — | C+ |
| Castle Douglas | 4,061 | 8.7 | — | A+ | — | C− |
| Dalbeattie | 4,134 | 11 | — | A+ | — | D |
No Scottish town has a Safety Grade or an overall grade yet: Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime. People: Census 2022. Miles: centre to centre.
That is 24 times the typical town in England and Wales for its size. It also has 2 scheduled monuments.
Surface water isn’t included. Check a specific address on GOV.UK’s flood risk service.
Band D council tax in Kirkcudbright is £1,579 for 2026–27, less than in 96% of UK towns (council, county, police and fire). Your own bill depends on your home’s band; check it on GOV.UK.
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.