Lanarkshire, or CLYDESDALE, a Scottish county, enclosed by Stirling, Dumbarton, Linlithgow, Edinburgh, Peebles, Dumfries, Ayr, and Renfrew shires. Its length is 50 miles, its greatest breadth 32 miles, and its area 889 sq. m. Drained almost entirely by the Clyde (q.v.) and its numerous affluents, Lanarkshire is subdivided into three wards, of which the upper or southern comprises 332,338 acres, the middle 194,211, and the lower 42,319. These offer a striking diversity of aspect—lonely uplands, smiling orchards, busy coalfields and manufacturing district. The principal hills are Green Lowther (2402 feet) and far-seen Tinto (2335); whilst the mining-village of Leadhills (1300 feet) is the highest in Scotland. The predominant rocks are Silurian, old red sandstone, and carboniferous, and the county possesses great mineral wealth—coal, ironstone, fireclay, shale, and lead, with some silver and even gold. The coal alone in the Lanarkshire coalfield is estimated to exceed 2000 million tons. The soil is as various as the scenery; and barely one-half of the whole area is in cultivation, whilst in 1888–89 woods occupied 20,148 acres, orchards 591, and market-gardens 1313. The orchards of Clydesdale were famous as early as the time of Bede, and yielded into the 19th century £8000 per annum; but now the ground is more profitably employed in producing straw- berries, gooseberries, vegetables, &c. for the Glasgow market. The climate is moist, mild and genial in many of the lower districts, but often cold and boisterous on the uplands. Lanarkshire is not a great grain county; but much of it is excellently adapted for the rearing of stock and for dairy purposes. The sheep are Cheviots and black-faced, the cattle Ayrshires; and the celebrated Clydesdale cart-horses issue from a Flemish cross (about 1720). The mineral, textile, and other industries are very extensive, and are noticed under the towns—Glasgow, Rutherglen, Lanark, Hamilton, Airdrie, Coatbridge, Motherwell, Wishaw, &c. Besides prehistoric and Roman remains, Lanarkshire contains the castles of Bothwell, Douglas, and Craignethan (Scott's 'Tillietudlem'), the priories of Blantyre and Lesmahagow, and the battlefields of Langside, Drumclog, and Bothwell Brig. Among its worthies have been Joanna Baillie, Dr John Brown, Sir Colin Campbell, Thomas Campbell, Lord Donald, David Livingstone, and Sir John Moore. Though only the twelfth in size, Lanarkshire is far the most populous and wealthy of all the thirty-three Scottish counties. Valuation (1875) £1,714,183; (1890) £2,226,352. Pop. (1801) 147,692; (1841) 426,972; (1881) 904,412; (1891) 1,105,899—an increase due largely to the transference hither of the portions of Glasgow formerly in Renfrewshire.
See works by Hamilton of Wishaw (1831), Irving and Murray (1861-64), and others cited at GLASGOW, CLYDE, COATBRIDGE, BIGGAR, &c.