Both the names Clydesdale and Strathclyde reference the area's position in the valley (strath or dale) of the River Clyde.

[5] The district was roughly conterminous to Lanarkshire's historic 'upper ward', being its southern part, the largest part in area but more rural and agricultural in character than the 'middle' and 'lower' wards which covered the densely-populated industrial towns in and around the lower Clyde Valley and the city of Glasgow.

(Scotland) Act 1994 which replaced regions and districts with unitary council areas.

[7] The term Clydesdale continues to be used locally, usually in contexts comparing issues affecting the rural southern territory differently to the more urbanised north, or in names of organisations which focus on the area around Lanark.

By 1978 it had moved into the converted and extended former St Mary's Hospital buildings on South Vennel in Lanark, which had been built in the 1860s.