Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
A Band D home pays £1,698 in council tax. Population 11,364: a town in East Lothian, Scotland.
Walkability is its strong suit: on the way to work, 25% walk, cycle or take a bus or train. Its weakest is health: men here can expect to live to 78.2, women to 81.4. Hazard risk is higher than most: 5.3% of homes face a high or medium risk of river or sea flooding. A median £258,100 buys a home here, 4.8 times what households in the East Lothian council area earn in a year.
Figures: commuting, Census 2022 · life expectancy and incomes, ONS · flood risk, SEPA · prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years. Without street-level crime figures from Police Scotland, Haddington has no Safety Grade, and so no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below.
The 3 things Haddington 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 Haddington is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Without street-level crime figures from Police Scotland, Haddington has no Safety Grade, and so no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 281 buildings inside Haddington’s locality, 9 of them in the top category, and 2 scheduled monuments.
Explore the history →Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Haddington. Best known first.
Historic houseLennoxlove House1.2 km outside town, to the south
MuseumNational Museum of Flight4.8 km outside town, to the northeast
CastleRedhouse Castle4.4 km outside town, to the northwest
FortThe Chesters Hill Fort3.6 km outside town, to the north
FortThe Chester4.2 km outside town, to the southPhotos: each place’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Haddington.
Scotland’s Census was taken on 20 March 2022, a year after England and Wales’s lockdown census; 32% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
The car took 74% of commuters, above East Lothian’s towns (70%) and Scotland’s towns (70%) alike. 31% of commuters travelled under 5 km to work. About 28% of its commuters stay in Haddington for work. The town counts 1 jobs per working resident.
Scotland’s Census 2022 (NRS), method of travel and distance to work · DWP claimant count · OGL
Haddington’s three primaries and one secondary have 1,997 pupils between them. Of its 4 schools, two are shown below, each with the reason.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Haddington Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 671 | – |
| Knox AcademyLargest secondary schoolSecondary | Secondary | 942 | C |
At the census, 5.5% of residents said their health was bad or very bad, lower than both East Lothian’s towns (5.9%) and Scotland’s towns (7.2%). Disability touches just over a fifth of Haddington’s population. Self-reported good health: 81% of the town’s residents.
| Census 2022 | Haddington | East Lothian | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 81% | 81% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 5.5% | 5.9% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 22% | 23% | 24% |
Scotland’s Census 2022, general health and disability · Public Health Scotland life expectancy by intermediate zone, 2020–24 · OGL · No age adjustment applies to these census answers, which flatter younger towns; the Health Grade’s measures, life expectancy and early deaths among them, do allow for age.
The private rented sector houses 8% of households. Private rents average £1,507 a month across the Lothian council area. Owners make up two thirds of households, close to East Lothian’s towns (66%) and above 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.
The heritage lists give each building’s grade but not its age, so we don’t say which is oldest.
Conservation areas cover 30% of Haddington’s land, above both East Lothian’s towns (11%) and Scotland’s towns (1%). For its size, Haddington has more listed buildings than any other town in East Lothian. The town’s listed buildings include Bank of Scotland Court Street, Category A. Also worth knowing: at the top of the list, 9 are Category A and 199 Category B.
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
Children under 15 make up 18%, above East Lothian’s towns (17%) and Scotland’s towns (15%) alike, and on top of that 22% of residents have reached 65. At 44.4, the median resident of Haddington sits in the middle of the age range. Among adults, 38% have a degree.
52% women, 48% men
About 92 men for every 100 women. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women.
| Haddington | East Lothian | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 18% | 17% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 8.9% | 10% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 24% | 24% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 28% | 28% | 27% |
| 65+ | 22% | 21% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 14% | 15% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 7.6% | 8.5% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 11% | 11% | 11% |
| Degree level | 38% | 33% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · East Lothian and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
281 listed buildings in Haddington, 9 of them in the top category.
Town Hall: Photo: Richard Webb · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Nungate Bridge Bridge Street: Photo: Achromatic · CC BY 3.0 · Railway Hotel Court Street: Photo: Linkogecko · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Goatfield Toll House 31 Dunbar Road: Photo: Chris Minto · CC BY-SA 2.0
25 notable people were born in Haddington.
Samuel Smiles: George Reid, Public domain · Jane Welsh Carlyle: Samuel Laurence, Public domain · Percy Erskine Nobbs: Wm. Notman & Son, CC0
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Haddington | 11,364 | — | — | B | — | C− |
| Longniddry | 2,598 | 4.6 | — | C− | — | B |
| Gullane | 2,897 | 5.8 | — | C− | — | B− |
| Tranent | 12,235 | 6.4 | — | B+ | — | C− |
| Cockenzie | 5,237 | 6.5 | — | B+ | — | C |
| Ormiston | 2,587 | 6.9 | — | B | — | C− |
| North Berwick | 8,314 | 7.2 | — | C | — | B+ |
| Prestonpans | 10,623 | 7.5 | — | 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 10.1 times the typical town in England and Wales for its size. Its Category A buildings include Bank of Scotland Court Street. It also has 2 scheduled monuments.
Surface water isn’t included. Check a specific address on GOV.UK’s flood risk service.
Town in East Lothian, Scotland
Haddington is a locality of 11,364 people, in the East Lothian 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.