Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Council tax at Band D comes to £1,468. Some 8,937 people live in this town, in South Lanarkshire, Scotland.
Lanark’s strongest subject is cost of living: the median home sold for £155,300, 3.4 years of area income. It is easy to get around without a car (A−): on the way to work, 22% walk, cycle or take a bus or train. Where it falls short is health (D): life expectancy 76.3 for men, 79.7 for women. Schools are weaker too (C−): school leavers’ results beat 18% of Scottish towns.
Figures: prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years · commuting, Census 2022 · life expectancy, ONS. Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Lanark has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Its other subjects still get grades, below.
The 3 things Lanark 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 Lanark is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Lanark has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Its other subjects still get grades, below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 175 buildings inside Lanark’s locality, 25 of them in the top category, and 3 scheduled monuments.
The archive holds 2 old photos and postcards going back to 1900 and a map from c. 1925.
Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Lanark.
Nearly one in ten households rent privately. Owners make up nearly two thirds of households, near South Lanarkshire’s towns (69%) and higher than Scotland’s towns (60%). The median, £155,300, rests on 519 sales in the town’s data zones from 2023 to 2025.
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.
Of its 5 schools, two are shown below, each with the reason. Lanark’s four primaries and one secondary have 1,763 pupils between them.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lanark Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 244 | – |
| Lanark Grammar SchoolLargest secondary schoolSecondary | Secondary | 1,120 | C− |
Three quarters of people in Lanark rate their own health good or very good. At the census, just over a quarter of people here had a disability, above South Lanarkshire’s towns (25%) and Scotland’s towns (24%) alike. Poor health, by residents’ own account, affects 7.6% of the town.
| Census 2022 | Lanark | South Lanarkshire | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 75% | 77% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 7.6% | 7.9% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 26% | 25% | 24% |
Scotland’s Census 2022, general health and disability · Public Health Scotland life expectancy by intermediate zone, 2020–24 · OGL · These answers aren’t adjusted for age, so young towns look healthier; the Health Grade uses age-adjusted measures, including life expectancy and early deaths.
Scotland’s Census was taken on 20 March 2022, a year after England and Wales’s lockdown census; 29% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
Lanark counts 1 jobs per working resident. About 29% of its commuters stay in Lanark for work. By car: that was how 77% of commuters travelled at the census. Short trips to work, under 5 km: 37%, higher than South Lanarkshire’s towns (31%) yet lower than Scotland’s towns (44%).
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.
Lanark’s listed buildings include Cemetery Chapel, Hyndford Road, Category A. It counts 175 listed buildings on the national list (Historic Environment Scotland): 25 Category A, 62 Category B. Conservation areas cover just over a tenth of the town’s land, higher than both South Lanarkshire’s towns (2%) and Scotland’s towns (1%).
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
14% are under 15, lower than both South Lanarkshire’s towns (16%) and Scotland’s towns (15%). Those aged 15 to 24 account for 9.6% of residents. The median resident of Lanark is 49.4 years old.
52% women, 48% men
About 91 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.
| Lanark | South Lanarkshire | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 14% | 16% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 9.6% | 10% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 21% | 25% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 29% | 28% | 27% |
| 65+ | 27% | 20% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 19% | 18% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 8.9% | 8.4% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 12% | 11% | 11% |
| Degree level | 30% | 28% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · South Lanarkshire and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Lanark. Best known first.
Historic houseCorehouse700 m outside town, to the south
CastleLee Castle2.9 km outside town, to the northwestRuinsRuinsMill 4in townMuseumMuseumRobert Owen's Housein townTheme parkTheme parkClyde Valley Family Park4.4 km outside town, to the westPhotos: each place’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
175 listed buildings in Lanark, 25 of them in the top category.
St Mary's Rc Church, St Vincent Place: Photo: Adam Black · CC BY-SA 4.0 · New Lanark, Community Hall (Former New Lanark Church) with Gatepiers, Railings and Boundary Walls: Photo: james denham · CC BY-SA 2.0 · New Lanark, Education Centre (Formerly the School): Photo: james denham · CC BY-SA 2.0 · New Lanark, Mill Number Four: Photo: Dbrooke1829 · CC BY-SA 4.0
82 notable people were born in Lanark.
Colin McRae: Carolyn, CC BY 2.0 · Walter Smith: Crowsus, CC BY 4.0 · Alister McRae: bjmullan, CC BY-SA 2.5 · Stephen Pearson: TuborgLight, CC BY-SA 3.0 · Ali Crawford: Jack86mkII, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Jimmy McRae: Scanbus at English Wikipedia, CC BY 3.0
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lanark | 8,937 | — | — | A+ | — | D |
| Carluke | 14,120 | 4.6 | — | A+ | — | D |
| Lesmahagow | 4,259 | 5.1 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Kirkmuirhill and Blackwood | 4,351 | 5.8 | — | A+ | — | C− |
| Law | 3,293 | 6.7 | — | A+ | — | C− |
| Stonehouse | 5,591 | 8.5 | — | A+ | — | D |
| Larkhall | 15,319 | 8.8 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Newmains | 5,364 | 8.9 | — | 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 8 times the typical town in England and Wales for its size. Its Category A buildings include Cemetery Chapel, Hyndford Road. It also has 3 scheduled monuments.
Band D council tax in Lanark is £1,468 for 2026–27, less than in 99% of UK towns (council, county, police and fire). Your own bill depends on your home’s band; check it on GOV.UK.
Homes cost less than in most UK towns: the median sale over three years was £155,300, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 76th most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
Town in South Lanarkshire, Scotland
Lanark is a locality of 8,937 people, in the South Lanarkshire 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.