List of outlying islands of Scotland

In this list, an island is defined as "land that is surrounded by seawater on a daily basis, but not necessarily at all stages of the tide, excluding human devices such as bridges and causeways".

[Note 1] A complication relating to membership of this list is that there are various descriptions of the scope of the Hebrides, the large group of islands that lie off Scotland's west coast.

The Collins Encyclopedia of Scotland describes the Inner Hebrides as lying "east of The Minch", which would include any and all offshore islands.

The most significant of these is the St Kilda archipelago[Note 2] which lies 64 kilometres (40 mi) west-northwest of North Uist and is now a World Heritage Site.

There is a small group of larger islands near Tongue Bay, but the largest on this coast is Stroma in the Pentland Firth, between Caithness and Orkney.

[citation needed] There are various smaller islets and skerries in the seas surrounding the mainland of Scotland that are only exposed at lower stages of the tide.

According to legend, three sons of a Danish prince, sailing to avenge their sister's wrongs, were wrecked here and gave these rocks their collective name.

A map of Scotland showing physical features.
Topographic map of Scotland
A stone trigonometric point, composed of individual stones cemented together into a small structure about a metre high and with a small metal object on the top, possibly a sundial, sits at the summit of a high hill. It overlooks an ocean in which there are three distant islands. One is large, green and wedge-shaped. The other two are precipitous stacks.
Boreray and the stacks from the heights of Conachair, Hirta
A children's play area sits amid leafless trees in the foreground. Beyond is a still body of water reflecting a cloudless sky. In the middle distance is a brown-coloured marshland, with green fields and woodlands beyond that, illuminated by a sun that is low in the sky.
Mugdrum seen from Newburgh
A precipitous and cliff-girt green island is mist-shrouded near its summit but with blue skies above.
Soay, St Kilda , the westernmost island of Scotland (excluding Rockall , the status of which is a matter of dispute)
A back and white aerial image of an isolated and steep-sided rock in the midst of a stormy sea. A large wave has broken on the rock and sent fountains of white water high into the air.
Winter waves breaking over Rockall in 1943
A grey and rocky islet sits in a dark sea. Waves lash the shores and innumerable white birds sit on its upper surfaces above black cliffs. The top of a small lighthouse can be seen near the highest point.
Sula Sgeir
A rocky peninsula, whose surface is covered in white birds sits in a grey sea. The rock is heavily eroded in places and there are two large gaps in the rock with a third making an oblong window right through the structure. More birds wheel around in the air and the summit of a precipitous island lies beyond under grey skies.
The westernmost of the Flannan Isles : Eilean a' Ghobha and Roareim with Brona Cleit in the distance
Two green sun-lit islets connected by a sandy tombolo sit offshore from a beach. The skies are grey and the sea all but flat calm.
The Rabbit Islands
White birds wheel around a tall and precipitous grey sea stack that is partly covered in guano. Cliffs on the left are shrouded in mist and another stack lies further away at right.
Stac an Armin with Boreray to the left and Stac Lee beyond at right
A tall grey rocky cliff towers over dark waters. The edge of the cliff is silhouetted against a leaden sky and topped with grass, creating a shape resembling a man's face.
Stac Levenish cliff's face silhouette
A brown stack composed of a sedimentary rocks sits in dark blue seas close to a grassy island. A white bird glides between the two.
Castle Mestag, Stroma
A series of dark black rocky shapes traverse from left to right in a dark blue sea under pale blue skies. The four main structures are tall and cliff-girt and set at odd angles to one another – the shapes are suggestive of a gathering of living creatures taken from a bestiary.
Stac Biorach (at left) and Stac Soay between Hirta and Soay
An Garbh-eilean off the north coast near Durness
A large brown rock with a striking shape lies just beyond a rock coast in a blue sea under a pale blue sky. The left hand and foreground part of the rock is wedge shaped and the sedimentary rocks it is made off are set at a 45 degree angle to the horizontal. A second part of the rock is in the shape of an arch with a thick top section and a thin downward leg. The whole structure has a strangely contrived air, suggestive of a wrecked ship.
Bow Fiddle Rock
A low-lying skerry made of dark rocks and covered with seabird droppings sits in a blue sea.
The skerry of Craiglethy – one of the few east coast islands