Due to its location, despite being at the heart of North Lanarkshire, the village is isolated, geographically and culturally, from surrounding towns such as Motherwell, Shotts and Wishaw.

[9] Cleland is situated in close proximity to the M8 motorway, offering road connections to Glasgow and Edinburgh, between and beyond.

Cleland railway station is situated on Bellside Road and is a stop on the Glasgow - Edinburgh via Shotts Line.

Cleland's is also in the UK Parliament constituency of Motherwell and Wishaw, and is represented by Marion Fellows of the Scottish National Party.

Louise Roarty of the Scottish Labour Party received the most first preferences votes in Cleland in the 2017 and 2022 Local Elections.

[15] Their son, James Cleland joined William Wallace in battle in 1296 at Loudonhill; at Stirling in 1297; Falkirk in 1298; Glasgow in 1300; and in France in 1301.

For his loyalty and good service, Robert the Bruce gave James Cleland the lands of Calder-clere, now East Calder.

James married a daughter of Lord Somerville in 1450, and their line branches out to be the Clelands of Faskin, Monkland and Gartness.

In 1596 Timothy Pont produced a map of Scotland, showing what is now Lanarkshire, with the places of Kneelandtou and Kneelandtounhead.

On returning to civilian life Colonel Dalrymple established the Omoa Iron Works on Cleland estate.

In 1856 Mr. Stewart acquired from Mr. Baillie Cochrane, now Lord Lamington, at a cost of £55,000, the estate of Murdostoun, situated in the parish of Shotts, and immediately began to improve it upon an extensive scale.

[21] Collieries around the present village included Knowenoble, Greenhill, Windyedge, and Spindleside, extracting thick-bedded coals and black-band ironstone The Coltness Iron Company was established in Newmains by Henry Houldsworth in 1837.

Henry Houldsworth had no difficulty, therefore, in attracting experienced labour from the iron works of Yorkshire as well as from Omoa and Wilsontown in Lanarkshire.

In 1885 the Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland recorded: Cleland, a village of N Lanarkshire, chiefly in Shotts parish, but also partly in Bothwell.

It mainly depends on the large neighbouring collieries of the Omoa and Cleland Coal and Iron Company; at it are an Established chapel of ease (1877), a Free church, and St Mary's Roman Catholic church (1877), to the last of which, designed by Messrs Peyin, a presbytery was added in 1881.

Further industrial ventures included the Omoa Greenhill Works brickworks (1889-1915), and the Cleland Pottery (1895–1911), the latter across the small gorge from Lithgow Drive.

The Annual Report of the County & District Medical Officer for Lanarkshire, 1910, describes Omoa Square: This group of 114 single-apartment and 24 two-apartment houses, is situated in the Parish of Shotts.

At this meeting the proprietor was strongly urged to provide domestic and sanitary conveniences of an approved type for the front one-storey block as an experiment in the first instance, but his agent objected very strongly to these proposals, on the ground that the expense was not warranted and the class of tenants would not make proper use of the conveniences.

[27]"The Housing Condition of Miners" Report by the Medical Officer of Health, Dr John T. Wilson, 1910, summarises the Square as: Originally built by Omoa Iron and Coal Co, but now privately owned.

and £6 10s; and 24 houses of two-apartments, rental £7 16s and £10 8s – one story, brick – erected about 70 years ago – no damp - roof course – plastered on solid – brick floors, some floors cement – internal surfaces of walls and ceilings irregular, broken and patched – walls mostly damp – several houses unoccupied.

[29] In the 1920s, hardship led to many Cleland families leaving for other mining areas or emigrating to America and Canada.