Dundee

The Royal Burgh of Dundee (Gaelic: Dùn Dèagh) is Scotland’s fourth largest city, population 154,674 (2001), and one of Scotland’s 32 council areas. The city is situated on the east coast, on the north bank of the Firth of Tay, near where the firth opens out into the North Sea.

The city is built around the basalt plug of an extinct volcano, now called Dundee Law (174 m (571 feet)). During the Iron Age it was the site of a Pictish settlement. In his History of the Scottish People (1527), Hector Boece suggests that the Pictish name was Alec-tum, meaning ‘a handsome place’. (This name was still in use, alongside the modern name, as late as 1607, according to William Camden.)

From 1975, the city was the administrative centre of Tayside Region, and was itself administered as one of the districts of that region. Since the abolition of two-tier local government in Scotland in 1996, the City of Dundee, incorporating the burgh of Broughty Ferry, has been a self-contained unitary authority making it Scotland’s smallest local government subdivision in terms of area. The mottos of the city are ‘Dei Donum’ [[[Latin]]: Gift of God] and ‘Prudentia et Candore’ [with thought and purity], typically only the latter is used for civic purposes.

Dundee celebrated its 800th anniversary in 1991, and is known as the ‘City of Discovery’ in honour of the RRS Discovery, Robert Falcon Scott’s famous Antarctic exploration vessel, which was built in the city.

On 5 March 2004, Dundee was granted Fairtrade City status. Dundee is Scotland’s sunniest city (because it is the only one facing south) with over 1400 hours of sunshine on average per year.