In 1581, the original 600 parishes were grouped together into about 50 presbyteries, 13 of which were erected immediately: Edinburgh, St Andrews, Dundee, Perth, Stirling, Glasgow, Ayr, Irvine, Haddington, Dunbar, Chirnside, Linlithgow and Dunfermline.
[2] Scottish local government was reorganised in 1975, creating a new system of regions and districts to replace the long-standing counties and burghs.
Following further local government reorganisation in the 1990s (replacing regions and districts with a single-tier system of councils), it was proposed to further considerably reduce the number of Presbyteries (possibly to as few as seven).
The following is a timeline of the mergers that took place before 2020: From 2020 to 2024 the Church of Scotland engaged in a process of consultations with the aim of reducing the number of presbyteries to around 12.
[19] In Scotland there are eleven: the nine marked above by bold type, plus the presbyteries of Lewis and Glasgow which as yet have been unaffected by mergers.