Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Council tax at Band D comes to £1,579. The town has 9,729 residents and lies in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland.
Homes are affordable: a typical home costs £112,900 and rent runs £641 a month. It also does well on walkability — 23% of commuters get to work on foot, by bike or by public transport. Health is a weak point: life expectancy 74.1 for men, 76.2 for women. School results trail most towns: school leavers’ results beat 16% of Scottish towns.
Figures: prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years · commuting, Census 2022 · life expectancy, ONS. Without street-level crime figures from Police Scotland, Stranraer has no Safety Grade, and so no overall grade. The other subjects are graded below.
The 3 things Stranraer 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 Stranraer is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Without street-level crime figures from Police Scotland, Stranraer has no Safety Grade, and so no overall grade. The other subjects are graded below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 73 buildings inside Stranraer’s locality, 3 of them in the top category.
The archive holds 1 old photo or postcard going back to 1890.
Explore the history →Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Stranraer.
Stranraer is the second cheapest of the 10 towns in Dumfries and Galloway, at £112,900. 28% live in social housing, above both Dumfries and Galloway’s towns (24%) and Scotland’s towns (24%). The owner-occupied share of households is 57%.
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.
Between them, five primaries and one secondary teach 1,875 pupils in Stranraer. Two of its 6 schools are below, each with the reason it’s listed.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Belmont SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 284 | – |
| Stranraer AcademyLargest secondary schoolSecondary | Secondary | 973 | C− |
74% of Stranraer’s residents described their health as good or very good at the census, below Dumfries and Galloway’s towns (76%) and Scotland’s towns (78%) alike. Its share in bad or very bad health, 9.1%, is the highest of the 10 towns in Dumfries and Galloway. Disability touches 29% of the town’s population.
| Census 2022 | Stranraer | Dumfries and Galloway | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 74% | 76% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 9.1% | 7.7% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 29% | 27% | 24% |
Scotland’s Census 2022, general health and disability · Public Health Scotland life expectancy by intermediate zone, 2020–24 · OGL · Census health answers are raw, so younger towns score better on them; for the Health Grade we use age-adjusted figures like life expectancy and early deaths.
Scotland’s Census was taken on 20 March 2022, a year after England and Wales’s lockdown census; 23% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
At the census, 73% of commuters went by car. 3.9% of 16 to 64s claimed unemployment benefits in 2026, higher than both Dumfries and Galloway’s towns (3%) and Scotland’s towns (2.8%). Stranraer counts 1 jobs per working resident. Of the commuters living locally, 68% work in the town itself.
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.
Stranraer’s listed buildings include George Street and Castle Street, Stranraer Castle, Category A. Conservation areas cover 5% of the town’s land, above Dumfries and Galloway’s towns (0%) and Scotland’s towns (1%) alike. At the top of the list, 3 are Category A and 29 Category B.
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
One in ten residents are aged 15 to 24. People 65 and over make up a quarter of the town, close to Dumfries and Galloway’s towns (25%) and above Scotland’s towns (19%). Residents of Stranraer have a median age of 46.9.
52% women, 48% men
About 92 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.
| Stranraer | Dumfries and Galloway | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 16% | 15% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 10% | 9.9% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 21% | 22% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 28% | 28% | 27% |
| 65+ | 25% | 25% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 29% | 23% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 7.6% | 8.9% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 12% | 11% | 11% |
| Degree level | 16% | 23% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · Dumfries and Galloway and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Stranraer. Best known first.
CastleCastle of St Johnin town
CastleNorth West Castlein town
MuseumStranraer Museumin town
CastleCastle Kennedy3 km outside town, to the eastPhotos: each place’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
73 listed buildings in Stranraer, 3 of them in the top category.
George Street and Castle Street, Stranraer Castle: Photo: jaqian from Dublin, Ireland · CC BY 2.0 · Leswalt High Road, The High Kirk of Stranraer (Church of Scotland) Including Graveyard, Boundary Walls, Gatepiers, Gates and Railings: Photo: Billy McCrorie · CC BY-SA 2.0 · London Road, Stair Park Bandstand: Photo: Andy Farrington · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Market Street, Harbour Office with Weighbridge: Photo: Billy McCrorie · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Geograph
29 notable people were born in Stranraer.
Colin Calderwood: Calderwood,_Colin.jpg: Original uploader was Jonesy702 at en.wikipedia derivative work: Jmorrison230582, CC BY-SA 3.0 · Leander Starr Jameson: Ball, Public domain · Callum Booth: Alasdair Middleton, CC BY 2.0 · Kevin Kyle: Alasdair Middleton, CC BY 2.0 · Ryan Hardie: Timmy96, CC0 · William King: FusionKrogan, CC BY-SA 4.0
Homes cost less than in most UK towns: the median sale over three years was £112,900, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 4th most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
That is 3.1 times the typical town in England and Wales for its size. Its Category A buildings include George Street and Castle Street, Stranraer Castle.
Surface water isn’t included. Check a specific address on GOV.UK’s flood risk service.
Band D council tax in Stranraer 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.
Town in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland
Stranraer is a locality of 9,729 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
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.