Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Band D council tax is £1,686. Home to 10,916 people, this town lies in North Ayrshire, Scotland.
Cost of living is its strong suit — a typical home costs £132,900 and rent runs £656 a month. Add schools to its strengths (A) — school leavers’ results beat 92% of Scottish towns. Health is its weak spot (C) — life expectancy 79.1 for men, 82.7 for women. Natural hazards weigh more here: 3% of homes face a high or medium risk of river or sea flooding.
Figures: prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years · life expectancy, ONS · flood risk, SEPA. Without street-level crime figures from Police Scotland, Largs has no Safety Grade, and so no overall grade. Its other subjects still get grades, below.
The 3 things Largs 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 Largs is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Without street-level crime figures from Police Scotland, Largs has no Safety Grade, and so no overall grade. Its other subjects still get grades, below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 49 buildings inside Largs’s locality, 4 of them in the top category, and 1 scheduled monument.
The archive holds 4 old photos and postcards going back to 1890.
Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Largs. Best known first.
CathedralCathedral of The Isles4.4 km outside town, to the southwest
CastleKelburn Castle800 m outside town, to the south
CastleKnock Castle1.2 km outside town, to the north
CastleSkelmorlie Castle4 km outside town, to the north
CastleFairlie Castle2.2 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 Largs.
8.7% of the population is aged 15 to 24, lower than both North Ayrshire’s towns (11%) and Scotland’s towns (12%). Largs has a median age of 56.7 years. Degrees are held by a third of adults.
53% women, 47% men
About 90 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.
| Largs | North Ayrshire | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 11% | 15% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 8.7% | 11% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 15% | 22% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 29% | 29% | 27% |
| 65+ | 36% | 23% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 16% | 21% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 8.3% | 8.9% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 11% | 10% | 11% |
| Degree level | 33% | 23% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · North Ayrshire and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
One in ten households rent from a council or housing body. Private renters make up just over one in ten households, higher than North Ayrshire’s towns (10%) yet lower than Scotland’s towns (13%). 1,024 sales in Largs’s data zones from 2023 to 2025 make up the median of £132,900.
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; 31% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
For 37% of commuters, work was under 5 km away. A quarter of commuters walked, cycled or took the bus or train at the census, above North Ayrshire’s towns (20%) but below Scotland’s towns (27%). The car carried 72% of commuters at the census.
Scotland’s Census 2022 (NRS), method of travel and distance to work · DWP claimant count · OGL
Of the 11 towns in North Ayrshire, Largs has the second-smallest share in bad or very bad health: 8%. 28% of residents have a disability, near North Ayrshire’s towns (29%) and higher than Scotland’s towns (24%).
| Census 2022 | Largs | North Ayrshire | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 76% | 74% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 8% | 9.3% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 28% | 29% | 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.
The heritage lists give each building’s grade but not its age, so we don’t say which is oldest.
Largs’s listed buildings include Bath Street, Clark Memorial Church and Gatepiers, Category A. The register of parks and gardens lists one here. For its size, Largs has 45 listed buildings per 10,000 residents, above North Ayrshire’s towns (35) and Scotland’s towns (22) alike.
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
49 listed buildings in Largs, 4 of them in the top category.
Skelmorlie Aisle,Brisbane Aisle: Photo: Rosser1954 Roger Griffith · Public domain · Harbour: Photo: Frombowen · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Greenock Road, Netherhall House & Gatehouse: Photo: Raibeart MacAoidh · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Geograph · Largs Battle Monument ("The Pencil"): Photo: Iroberts696 · CC BY-SA 4.0
18 notable people were born in Largs.
Thomas Brisbane: E. E. Friedrich T. Schenck (1811-1885), Public domain · John Sessions: Greengo8cat, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Sam Torrance: Pvt pauline, CC BY-SA 3.0 · Benny Gallagher: NotAdele, CC BY-SA 3.0 · Alex Maley: Stoorybrig, CC BY 4.0
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Largs | 10,916 | — | — | A+ | — | C |
| West Kilbride | 4,876 | 7.3 | — | A− | — | C |
| Kilbirnie | 7,110 | 7.4 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Inverkip | 3,542 | 7.6 | — | B | — | B |
| Rothesay | 4,206 | 7.9 | — | A− | — | D |
| Dalry | 5,274 | 8.3 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Lochwinnoch | 2,769 | 9.2 | — | A− | — | B− |
| Beith | 5,773 | 9.4 | — | 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.
Homes cost less than in most UK towns: the median sale over three years was £132,900, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 101st most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
GCSE results beat 92% of towns in England (Department for Education, Attainment 8). Places are handled by the local council.
Band D council tax in Largs is £1,686 for 2026–27, less than in 91% of UK towns (council, county, police and fire). Your own bill depends on your home’s band; check it on GOV.UK.
Town in North Ayrshire, Scotland
Largs is a locality of 10,916 people, in the North Ayrshire 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.