Wick (Scottish Gaelic: Inbhir Ùige [ˈinivɪɾʲˈuːkʲə]; Scots: Week[3]) is a town and royal burgh in Caithness, in the far north of Scotland.

[13] Wick belonged to Norway, as did all of Caithness, until the reign of William the Lion (1165–1214), at which time the Norwegian earls held of the king of Scotland.

The Origines Parochiales Scotiae records these events for twelfth-century Wick: Between the years 1142 and 1149 Rognvald Earl of Orkney went into Katanes and was there entertained at Vik by a husbandman named Sveinn the son of Hroald, a very brave man.

When Sveinn Asleifson was in the Hebrides, he committed the keeping of Dungulsbae, which he had received from Earl Rognvald, to Margad Grimson, whose oppressions caused many to take refuge with Hroald in Wik.

The last male heir, Sir Reginald de Cheyne, died c. 1345 and was succeeded by his two daughters, who, by marriage, carried the lands into the clans Sinclair, Sutherland, and Keith.

While Sinclair and his men concealed themselves in Girnigoe Castle nearby, Sutherland proceeded to burn the town of Wick, "an achievement of no great difficulty, as the place at that time merely consisted of a few mean straggling houses thatched with straw".

[23] Wick did not escape the turbulence of the Reformation period when, in 1613, the Anglican archdeacon Richard Merchiston of Bower, a graduate of the University of Edinburgh, was brought into Caithness by Bishop Patrick Forbes.

At first yielding to the city authorities who tried to prevent violence, a band of men nevertheless followed the parson as he returned home in the evening, took him by force, and drowned him in the Wick River.

[24] In 1680, the last clan battle in Scotland took place two miles (three kilometres) west of Wick at Altimarlach, involving a dispute between Campbell of Glenorcy and the Sinclairs over the earldom of Caithness.

[26] When Robert Forbes, appointed episcopal Bishop of Caithness in 1762, arrived in the county, he discovered there was no minister at Wick, but he is known to have held services and performed confirmations at the "house of Mr. Campbell" there.

In ruins at the time, the chapel had originally been made of stone and mortar without any lime, leaving little gaps in the wall into which people would press offerings of bread, cheese, and money.

One of the late Presbyterian preachers of Wick thought to have abolished this old practice; and for that end appointed a Diet of catechising in that corner of the parish upon the day of the Holy Innocents, but not one attended him; all went, as usual, to St. Tear’s Chapel.

Charles Thomson, a nineteenth-century minister of the Free Church of Wick, stated in the New Statistical Account of Scotland that, though the bread and cheese were intended for the souls of the slain children, a dog-keeper in the neighbourhood would take the food out and feed it to the hounds.

[34] Pulteneytown was founded in 1808 to provide space for the many Scots displaced by the Highland Clearances, who poured to the coast in search of work in the fishing industry.

[37] Two newspapers were established in Wick in the nineteenth century: the John o' Groat Journal in 1836 and the Northern Ensign in 1850, both of which are said to have espoused Liberal views in politics.

[38] The brig Lalla Rookh was driven onto rocks at Elzy, described as a few miles east of Wick, in April 1836, on her way from Newcastle upon Tyne to Quebec in ballast under the command of Captain Green, during a severe easterly gale.

Captain Ernest Edmund "Ted" Fresson, OBE, the founder of Highland Airways Limited, established the first air service at Wick, using a grass field one nautical mile (two kilometres) north of town.

[42] Pilots flying from Wick engaged in reconnaissance, anti-submarine patrols, convoy escort, defence of Scapa Flow, and strikes against the Germans in Norway and Norwegian waters.

He wrote a letter to his mother describing the town:[47][48] Wick lies at the end or elbow of an open triangular bay, hemmed on either side by shores, either cliff or steep earth-bank, of no great height.

(Stornoway boats) have beaten out of the bay, and the Wick men stay indoors or wrangle on the quays with dissatisfied fish-curers, knee-high in brine, mud, and herring refuse.

But they just live among heaped boulders, damp with continual droppings from above, with no more furniture than two or three tin pans, a truss of rotten straw, and a few ragged cloaks.

In winter the surf bursts into the mouth and often forces them to abandon it.The town lies on the estuary of the Wick River, spanned by two road bridges.

In the early years of the 19th century Sir William commissioned Britain's leading civil engineer, Thomas Telford, to design and supervise the creation of a major new herring fishing town and harbour at the estuary of the River Wick.

[59] Wick has an oceanic climate (Köppen Cfb), encompassing a narrow temperature range, low sunshine levels and high winds.

Despite its far north location, close to the path of Atlantic depressions, rainfall averages below 800 mm (31 in) due to a rain shadow caused by mountains to the west.

In July 2024 the company announced a major expansion[77] The Castle of Old Wick (58°25′24.09″N 3°4′53.91″W / 58.4233583°N 3.0816417°W / 58.4233583; -3.0816417) was built in the 12th century when the Norwegian Earldom of Orkney included Caithness, and was united under Harald Maddadsson.

During the 14th century it was owned by Sir Reginald de Cheyne who was a supporter of Edward I during his attempt to establish John Balliol as King of Scotland, although there is no evidence of a battle having taken place there.

A memorial was erected in 2006 in honour of nine local merchant seafarers who died in that ship's heroic 1940 naval battle with the German heavy cruiser Admiral Scheer.

In 2006 the BBC reported that the Guinness Book of Records had confirmed the world's shortest street, Ebenezer Place measuring 2.06 metres, and containing just one door, was located in Wick (ND363508).

In August 2015, Wick councillors threatened to break these ties on account of a Faroese long standing practice which involves hunting and eating migrating pilot whales.