It is a former burgh within the historic county of Renfrewshire, and forms part of a contiguous urban area with Gourock to the west and Port Glasgow to the east.

[3] The Scottish Gaelic place-name Grianaig is relatively common, with another Greenock near Callander in Menteith (formerly in Perthshire) and yet another at Muirkirk in Kyle, now in East Ayrshire.

[7] The spelling Greenoak was found in two factory accounts dating back to 1717, and a legend developed of a green oak tree at the edge of the Clyde at William Street being used by fishermen to tie up their boats.

Further east, Saint Laurence Bay curved round past the Crawfurd Barony of Easter Greenock to Garvel (or Gravel) Point.

When a pier (or dyke) was built making the bay an important harbour, the fishing village of Cartsdyke gained the alternative name of Craufurdsdyke.

[16][15] In 1696 and 1700 Schaw and residents of the town made unsuccessful bids to the Scottish Parliament for grants for a Greenock harbour, then when the Act of Union 1707 opened up involvement in colonial trade, they raised their own funds.

From 1774 the dredging of the River Clyde increasingly allowed ships to take merchandise directly to Glasgow, but merchants continued to use Greenock harbour.

The American Revolutionary War temporarily interrupted trade, and the gun battery of Fort Beauclerc near the West Burn was extended to guard against the threat of privateers, but the emphasis shifted to wider markets including imports of rum and sugar from the Caribbean, wines from Spain, and fish from North America.

Greenock "was mainly a trading port for goods such as sugar and cotton, but also dispatched ships to West Africa to take people to be enslaved" in Britain's American colonies.

The Captain and mate of the cargo ship were tried in a blaze of publicity at the High Court of Justiciary in Edinburgh and served short prison terms.

Receipts rose rapidly with the expansion of colonial trade, and in 1778 the custom house moved to newly-built premises at the West Quay of the harbour.

TEE was closed in 1959, when all torpedo research, development and design were concentrated at the newly formed Admiralty Underwater Weapons Establishment (AUWE), Portland.

It was extended over the years, at an early stage the Schaw aisle provided pews for the Laird of the Barony, built as a gallery to the east of the nave of the church.

In 1926, to make way for expansion of the Harland & Wolff shipyard (the present-day location of Container Way), the Old West Kirk was relocated to a new site on the Esplanade where it still stands.

[33] Greenock suffered badly during the Second World War and its anchorage at the Tail of the Bank became the base for the Home Fleet as well as the main assembly point for Atlantic convoys.

On 30 April 1940 the French Vauquelin class destroyer Maillé Brézé blew up off Greenock with heavy loss of life following an accident involving two of her own torpedoes.

Although there has been recent debate [38] the moderating influence of the North Atlantic Drift, a warm oceanic current that is the eastern extension of the Gulf Stream, means that Greenock's average temperature is approximately one degree Celsius greater than eastern Scottish coastal towns on the same latitude (55.94 degrees north); whilst in winter, Greenock is considerably warmer than continental locations at the same latitude, such as Moscow.

[42] In 2004 Inverclyde Royal Hospital faced proposals for a major downsizing with the loss of the accident and emergency department and the acute surgical ward in an effort to save costs.

Historically, the town relied on shipbuilding, sugar refining and wool manufacturing for employment, but none of these industries are today part of Greenock's economy.

[51] Freight traffic is handled at the container cranes of Greenock's Ocean Terminal, at Prince's Pier which was constructed for the Glasgow and South Western Railway.

Ships on the Montreal to Liverpool transit would anchor at the Tail of the Bank off Greenock in the Firth of Clyde and steam paddlewheel ferries would service the liners.

Greenock's Great Harbour is one of the three main ports providing marine services support to the Royal Navy, in dual site operation with Faslane at HMNB Clyde on the Gare Loch.

Greenock's attractive esplanade provides a gently curving riverside walk just over a mile (1.6 km) long extending to the west from Ocean Terminal to the Royal West of Scotland Amateur Boat Club sailing, kayaking and rowing facilities, which originated as a rowing club built against the east wall of Fort Matilda in 1866, and was granted its present title in 1885.

[53] Fort Matilda was adapted for various purposes, eventually becoming the Navy Buildings which housed a main Her Majesty's Coastguard centre until it closed in December 2012, as well as a Royal Naval Reserve establishment, HMS Dalriada.

The former sugar warehouse at the James Watt Dock was by then scheduled as a category A listed building as a fine example of early industrial architecture, with an unusual feature of a colonnade of cast iron columns forming a sheltered unloading area next to the quayside.

The original building became part of the Oak Mall, which was simply built during the first phase of pedestrianisation, where it remained until the store closed down, and moved to a new unit in Port Glasgow.

[65] As of major redevelopment projects taking place in Greenock, the eastern side of the Oak Mall, as well as the A78 flyover, and Hector McNeil House will be demolished in the beginning of 2025 after many years of plans and discussions.

Greenock features in Charles Nodier's 1832 romantic fairy-tale novel La fée aux miettes as the original home and final destination of the eponymous "Crumb Fairy," who, at the beginning of the story is trapped in France.

John McGeoch, one of the most influential rock guitarists of the last decades,[92] was born in Greenock in 1955; he spent his childhood with his family in the city before moving in his teens.

[94] Other Greenockians include the composers Hamish MacCunn and William Wallace, violinist Henri Temianka, mathematician William Spence,[95] poets Denis Devlin, W. S. Graham and Jean Adam, merchant Matthew Algie, actors Richard Wilson, David Ashton, Martin Compston and Stella Gonet, artists William Scott and Alison Watt, playwrights Bill Bryden,[96] Neil Paterson and Peter McDougall, comedian Charles 'Chic' Murray, opera singer Hugh Enes Blackmore, broadcaster Jimmy Mack, American football player Lawrence Tynes, children's theatre performer Ruairidh Forde, PGA Pro golfer Colin Robinson, Antarctic explorer Henry Robertson 'Birdie' Bowers and portrait painter Leonard Boden.