It is situated on Banff Bay and faces the town of Macduff across the estuary of the River Deveron.

[2] William J. Watson writes: "It is true that Banff is Banb in the Book of Deer and Banbh in modern Gaelic—one syllable.

"[3] Banff's first castle was built to repel Viking invaders and a charter of 1163 AD shows that Malcolm IV was living there at that time.

[4] During this period the town was a busy trading centre in the "free hanse" of Northern Scottish burghs, despite not having its own harbour until 1775.

[5][2] By the 15th century Banff was one of three principal towns exporting salmon to the continent of Europe, along with Aberdeen and Montrose.

Twenty of his friends and followers then attacked Ogilvie with swords before chasing him into the street and finishing him off with a pistol shot.

[6] During the 19th Century the Banff Fishery District (comprising the ports from Crovie to Sandend) was important to the herring trade, with production peaking in 1853 at more than sixty-thousand barrels, of which nearly thirty-four thousand were exported;[8] however, by 1912 production had declined to just over eight thousand barrels.

The modern-day town has a golf course (Duff House Royal), beaches, and was home to the Colleonard Sculpture Park, which was relocated to Aviemore.

The townscape, which is one of the best-preserved in Scotland, has many historic buildings, including fragments of the former royal Banff Castle, a pre-Reformation market cross, a tolbooth, many vernacular townhouses, and a museum donated by Andrew Carnegie.

(The market cross has been moved several times, before finding a permanent home on the plainstanes, the elevated stone pavement in front of Banff Town House on Low Street.

Now flats, the hotel replaced the Black Bull Inn, to accommodate visitors to Duff House.

[12] The adjacent buildings to the south, numbers 2 and 4, date from the mid 18th century and are in the "older style", with crowstepped with skew putts and harled wings to the rear.

[12] At 1 Low Street is the Court House and County Hall, built late in his life, between 1870 and 1871, by James Matthews.

[13] It was built on the former site of the home of Katharine Innes, Lady Gight, who was periodically visited by her grandson, George Gordon (later Lord Byron).

Though no longer a commercial port, the harbour has been subject to redevelopment during the latter half of 2006 and now has a marina which serves leisure traffic and small fishing boats.

By 2012 the silting problem had been resolved and the entrance is kept dredged to Chart Datum which makes it accessible over longer periods of the tide, especially to boats of a metre or less draft.

[12] It combined the school with the Museum of the Banff Institution for Science, Literature & the Arts, founded in 1828.

The Museum passed into Town control in 1875, and replaced the ancient Turrets building in High Street in 1902.

[15] "A beautifully scaled street focused upon the Doric portico of the former Fife Arms Hotel at the bottom," writes Charles McKean.

It was converted into dwellings in 1787 retaining the "trade halls" on the ground floor in the form of retail outlets.

This was the first work undertaken for the Banff Preservation Trust, which was formed due to the demolition of the property to the right, originally a fruit and vegetable shop where the produce was grown on the land at the rear on the building.

There are plans to sell the land for construction of a Morrisons supermarket, despite most participants in public consultations opposing the sale.