It sits directly north of the city centre and is bordered by the newer area of Garnethill to the south-west and Townhead to the east.

Cowcaddens was originally a village and became an industrious and thriving part of the expanding Glasgow, being close to Port Dundas and the Forth and Clyde Canal immediately to its north.

By the 1880s, the area was becoming a slum district with the highest level of infant mortality (190 per thousand births) in the city, a figure which was three times that of the West End.

The southern fringes of Cowcaddens have historically housed one of Glasgow's premier entertainment districts, with theatres and cinemas dotted throughout the neighbourhood.

The socialist politician Edward Hunter, who was instrumental in helping build the Left in New Zealand, was a Labour councillor for Cowcaddens from 1937 until 1959.

Jimmy Barnes and his elder brother John Swan (aka Swanee) spent their early childhood living in Cowcaddens before emigrating to Australia.