Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
A town of 3,149 in the Stirling council area, Scotland. 43 listed buildings, 0 of them in the top category.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Callander has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below. Its strongest subject is cost of living (A+): the 108th most affordable of 296 Scottish towns: median sale £218,200, 4.2 years of area income; rent £930 a month. Its weakest is hazard risk (D): 4% of homes at high or medium risk of flooding from rivers or the sea.
The 3 things Callander 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 Callander is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Callander has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 43 buildings inside Callander’s locality, 10 of them in the second category, and 1 scheduled monument.
The archive holds 3 old photos and postcards going back to 1890.
Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Callander.
Owners make up 68% of households, above both Stirling council area’s towns (63%) and Scotland’s towns (60%). The median, £218,200, rests on 178 sales in Callander’s data zones from 2023 to 2025. Council and housing-body homes hold nearly a quarter of households.
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.
Below are its two schools. McLaren High School’s results beat 77% of schools in Scotland like it. Callander’s one primary and one secondary have 911 pupils between them.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Callander Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 242 | – |
| McLaren High SchoolLargest secondary schoolSecondary | Secondary | 669 | A− |
People 65 and over make up 29% of the town, above Stirling council area’s towns (19%) and Scotland’s towns (19%) alike. The median resident of Callander is 51.1 years old. Degrees are held by 37% of adults.
52% women, 48% men
About 93 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.
| Callander | Stirling council area | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 15% | 14% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 7.9% | 17% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 19% | 23% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 29% | 26% | 27% |
| 65+ | 29% | 19% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 15% | 13% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 7.6% | 6.2% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 11% | 14% | 11% |
| Degree level | 37% | 38% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · Stirling council area and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
Scotland’s Census was taken on 20 March 2022, a year after England and Wales’s lockdown census; 35% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
There are 0.8 jobs in Callander for each resident in work. Of the commuters living locally, 35% work in the town itself. Just over a fifth of commuters walked, cycled or took the bus or train at the census, close to Stirling council area’s towns (22%) and below Scotland’s towns (27%).
Scotland’s Census 2022 (NRS), method of travel and distance to work · DWP claimant count · OGL
At the census, 5.1% of people here described their health as bad or very bad. A quarter of residents have a disability, above Stirling council area’s towns (22%) and close to Scotland’s towns (24%). Self-reported good health: 80% of Callander’s residents.
| Census 2022 | Callander | Stirling council area | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 80% | 81% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 5.1% | 5.8% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 25% | 22% | 24% |
Scotland’s Census 2022, general health and disability · Public Health Scotland life expectancy by intermediate zone, 2020–24 · OGL · Young towns look healthier on these answers, which aren’t adjusted for age; the Health Grade uses measures that are, 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.
Only one town in the Stirling council area has more listed buildings for its size than Callander. Category B covers 10 of them. The town has 43 listed buildings on Historic Environment Scotland’s list: 10 Category B.
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
43 listed buildings in Callander.
Bridge Street, Callander Churchyard Including Watch House: Photo: Drkirstyross · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Bridgend, Bridgend House Hotel: Photo: Drkirstyross · CC BY-SA 4.0 · South Church Street, Callander Kirk (Formerly St. Bride's Church of Scotland): Photo: M J Richardson · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Tom ma Chisaig,motte: Photo: Drkirstyross · CC BY-SA 4.0
8 notable people were born in Callander.
William McBeath: "MAC", Public domain · Duncan McIntyre: Notman & Sandham, Public domain · James MacGregor: It says that the photo is by James MacGregor, but he is in fact in the photo., Public domain · John MacDonald of Garth: Collection de folklore et d’histoire locale de l’Alberta/Bibliothèque de collections Spéciales Bruce Peel, Université de l’Alberta, 96-93-529, Public domain
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Callander | 3,149 | — | — | A+ | — | C |
| Dunblane | 8,797 | 9.8 | — | A | — | B+ |
| Bridge of Allan | 4,744 | 12 | — | A− | — | A− |
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 5.6 times the typical town in England and Wales for its size. It also has 1 scheduled monument.
An older town. At the 2022 Census, 29% of residents were 65 or over and 29% were 45 to 64, against 19% and 27% across Scotland’s towns; 15% were under 15.
Surface water isn’t included. Check a specific address on GOV.UK’s flood risk service.
GCSE results beat 81% of towns in England (Department for Education, Attainment 8). Callander has 2 state schools; places are handled by the local council.
Town in Stirling, Scotland
Callander is a locality of 3,149 people, in the Stirling 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.