In the 2000s, the county's economy suffered a major downturn due to the departure of textile manufacturers and the Great Recession.

The economy continues to struggle in the area and the county regularly suffers from one of the state's highest unemployment rates.

Scottish Highlanders and some English Quakers began colonizing the area as early as the 1720s when it was within the British Province of North Carolina.

[4] More immigrants came after the American Revolutionary War, especially one large group of Highland Scots which came from the Cape Fear River.

[2] The Laurel Hill community largely moved south in 1861 after the Wilmington, Charlotte and Rutherford Railroad laid a line through the area.

[12] Legislator Maxey John introduced several unsuccessful bills in the North Carolina General Assembly to carve out a new county around Laurinburg between 1893 and 1897.

[11] During the state legislative elections of 1898, Democrats organized intensely in the area to unseat the statewide Fusionist coalition of state Republicans and Populists, including the deployment of paramilitary Red Shirts in Laurinburg to intimidate black residents and other opponents at the polls.

[18] At its creation, the county was socially and politically dominated by its resident white planter class and businessmen.

[4] Scotland's black population increased in the 1910s and early 1920s as tenant cotton farmers moved north from the Deep South to escape areas infested by the boll weevil.

[14] County cotton production peaked in 1920 as farmers diversified their operations and began growing fruits and melons.

[21] The area suffered heavily during the Great Depression, as two banks in Laurinburg failed and a state report indicated that one fourth of the local population was destitute.

The strike gained state-wide media attention after the strikers engaged in a brawl with loyalist workers, with nine people wounded by gunfire, before the dispute was resolved by arbitration.

[23] The United States Resettlement Administration purchased much of the low-quality land in the Sandhills portion of the county and turned it into a recreational area.

[27] Mechanization of agriculture in the 1950s led to depopulation in rural areas, as former farm laborers moved to Laurinburg, Wagram, and outside the county in search of new jobs;[28] from 1950 to 1960, the population decreased by over 1,100 people.

Much agricultural land was retired through the Soil Bank Program, and tenant farming and sharecropping rapidly declined.

[29] Faced with the decline in agricultural employment, county leaders in the postwar era appealed for state and federal grants to improve local infrastructure and attract outside industry.

Funds were acquired to build low-income housing, pave roads, and support the creation of a new hospital.

The Great Recession led to the closure and shrinking of other manufacturing businesses, leading its employment rate to peak at 18.6 percent in July 2011.

[32] Located within the southeastern portion of the state of North Carolina,[16] Scotland County rests at the border between the Coastal Plain and Piedmont regions.

[38] The county is also populated by several hundred Carolina bays, most of which are concentrated in the northeast, east, and just south of Laurinburg.

[36] Native trees include loblolly pine, sweetgum, red maple, and water oak.

[42] Longleaf pine grows in the Sandhills Game Land, a state nature preserve which covers part of Scotland County.

Other fauna in the county include Carolina gopher frogs, eastern tiger salamanders, and loggerhead shrikes.

[47] Scotland proportionately has the third-largest Native American population of any North Carolina county at 14 percent.

[51] The North Carolina Office of State Budget and Management projects a 6.7 percent population decline in the county between 2020 and 2030.

[12] The armed forces operate the Luzon Drop Zone military airfield[62] and Camp Mackall in the county (the latter only partially).

[2] The local manufacturing industry produces textiles, cabinet accessories, mobile homes, hospital equipment,[1] and automotive parts.

[92] The longest straight stretch of railroad track in the United States, spanning 78.86 miles, connects Wilmington to the east with the Scotland community of Old Hundred.

[96] The county hosts a satellite campus of the Richmond Community College and St. Andrews University, a private liberal arts school.

[77][97] According to the 2021 American Community Survey, an estimated 15.3 percent of county residents have attained a bachelor's degree or higher level of education.