Created in 2007, the ward elects three councillors using the single transferable vote electoral system and covers an area with a population of 14,726 people.

The ward has politically been split between the Scottish National Party (SNP), Labour and the Conservatives.

The ward was created following the Fourth Statutory Reviews of Electoral Arrangements ahead of the 2007 Scottish local elections.

Clydesdale North covers an area in the northeast of South Lanarkshire next to its boundaries with North Lanarkshire Council and West Lothian Council and takes in the town of Lanark plus Kirkfieldbank and a rural area to the northeast including the villages of Forth and Auchengray.

[2] Following the Fifth Statutory Reviews of Electoral Arrangements ahead of the 2017 Scottish local elections, the ward's boundaries were not changed.