Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Population 2,598: a town in East Lothian, Scotland. Council tax at Band D comes to £1,698.
Longniddry is easy to get around without a car: on the way to work, 19% walk, cycle or take a bus or train. The weak point is schools: school leavers’ results beat 4% of Scottish towns. Housing is expensive: the median home sold for £424,900, 7.9 years of area income. Hazard risk is higher than most: 2.8% of homes face a high or medium risk of river or sea flooding.
Figures: commuting, Census 2022 · prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years · flood risk, SEPA. Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Longniddry has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Every other subject still has a grade below.
The 3 things Longniddry 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 Longniddry is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Longniddry has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Every other subject still has a grade below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 27 buildings inside Longniddry’s locality, 1 of them in the top category.
Explore the history →Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Longniddry.
44% of adults hold a degree, higher than both East Lothian’s towns (33%) and Scotland’s towns (32%). Under 15: 12% of residents. The middle age in Longniddry is 56.4. Those aged 15 to 24 account for nearly one in ten residents.
51% women, 49% men
About 96 men for every 100 women. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women.
| Longniddry | East Lothian | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 12% | 17% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 8.5% | 10% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 14% | 24% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 30% | 28% | 27% |
| 65+ | 36% | 21% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 12% | 15% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 7.1% | 8.5% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 10% | 11% | 11% |
| Degree level | 44% | 33% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · East Lothian and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
Below is its only school. 173 pupils attend Longniddry’s one primary school. Its one school is below.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Longniddry Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 173 | – |
15% live in social housing, below both East Lothian’s towns (23%) and Scotland’s towns (24%). No town in East Lothian costs more to buy into than Longniddry, at £424,900, the highest of 11. Renting privately is how 4% of households live.
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; 40% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
Working mainly from home: two in five workers, higher than both East Lothian’s towns (33%) and Scotland’s towns (31%). The car carried just over three quarters of commuters at the census. Also worth knowing: 2% of commuters who live in Longniddry also work there. Among 16 to 64s, 1.2% claimed unemployment benefits in 2026.
Scotland’s Census 2022 (NRS), method of travel and distance to work · DWP claimant count · OGL
Life expectancy here is 87.1 for women and 79.8 for men (2020–24). At the census, just over four fifths of people in Longniddry called their health good or very good, near East Lothian’s towns (81%) and higher than Scotland’s towns (78%).
| Census 2022 | Longniddry | East Lothian | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 81% | 81% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 5.3% | 5.9% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 24% | 23% | 24% |
Scotland’s Census 2022, general health and disability · Public Health Scotland life expectancy by intermediate zone, 2020–24 · OGL · Self-reported health favours young towns, since these answers ignore age; the Health Grade leans on age-adjusted measures such as life expectancy and early deaths.
The heritage lists give each building’s grade but not its age, so we don’t say which is oldest.
Longniddry’s listed buildings include Gosford Gateway West Lodge and Policy Walls, Category A. It has 104 listed buildings for every 10,000 residents, above East Lothian’s towns (76) and Scotland’s towns (22) alike. At the top of the list, 1 are Category A and 12 Category B.
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Longniddry. Best known first.
Historic houseGosford House1.6 km outside town, to the northeast
CastlePreston Tower4.5 km outside town, to the southwest
CastleRedhouse Castle1.7 km outside town, to the northeast
CastleLuffness House4.4 km outside town, to the northeast
MuseumMyreton Motor Museum4.8 km outside town, to the northeastMuseumMuseum1722 Waggonway Heritage Centre3.1 km outside town, to the westPhotos: each place’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Longniddry | 2,598 | — | — | C− | — | B |
| Cockenzie | 5,237 | 2.1 | — | B+ | — | C |
| Tranent | 12,235 | 3 | — | B+ | — | C− |
| Prestonpans | 10,623 | 3.3 | — | A− | — | D |
| Haddington | 11,364 | 4.6 | — | B | — | C− |
| Ormiston | 2,587 | 4.8 | — | B | — | C− |
| Wallyford | 4,493 | 5.1 | — | B− | — | D |
| Gullane | 2,897 | 5.2 | — | C− | — | B− |
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.
GCSE results trail 96% of towns in England (Department for Education, Attainment 8). One state school is inside the town; places are handled by the local council.
An older town. More households own their home than across Scotland’s towns: 80%, against 60%.
That is 4.3 times the typical town in England and Wales for its size. Its Category A building is Gosford Gateway West Lodge and Policy Walls.
Surface water isn’t included. Check a specific address on GOV.UK’s flood risk service.
Town in East Lothian, Scotland
Longniddry is a locality of 2,598 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.