About Scotland Week

About Scotland Week

This year,the programme kicks off on Tartan Day (April 6), celebrated nationally in both America and Canada, and will come to a close on April 14 with the spectacular Tartan Day Parade finale in New York.

Scotland re:Designed - an innovative new textiles exhibition in New York to showcase the best of Scottish design talent. Featuring 12 selected Scottish exhibitors, both new and established, Scotland re:Designed is aimed at promoting Scottish flair for fashion and textile design amongst American trade buyers and media.

Scotland Run- the ninth annual 10k Scotland Run has 10,000 confirmed runners and will attract thousands more spectators who will all be treated to a festival of Scottish culture including live music in New York's Central Park.

A series of business meetings in seven cities across the USA and Canada to promote Scotland as a great place to invest.

Year of Creative Scotland- 59E59 Theatres will host two Scottish plays, David Harrower's A Slow Air by Glasgow's Tron Theatre and Federer v Murray by Communicado Theatre, for a total of 21 performances during Scotland Week.

50 million people across the world claim Scottish heritage - the majority being in America and Canada. They and many more Scots at heart will join in throughout the year to celebrate Scotland's cultural festivals.

Links across the Atlantic are long established - 13 American presidents have claimed Scottish ancestry and Canada's first Prime Minister, Sir John MacDonald, hailed from Glasgow.
The Scottish Government. VisitScotland and Scottish Development International uses Scotland Week to encourage Americans and Canadians to see Scotland as an attractive place to visit, live, work, study,do business and invest in -a modern dynamic Scotland and a warm, welcoming nation.

Now in its fifth year, Scotland Week 2012 sees a focus on the Year of Creative Scotland, bringing together Scotland's unique heritage, culture and creativity to celebrate our talent, past and present.

Scotland Facts

Capital :Edinburgh
Largest City : Glasgow
Official Language(S) : English, Gaelic, Scots
Queen (of the UK) :Queen Elizabeth II
Prime Minister (of the UK) : David Cameron MP
First Minister of Scotland : Alex Salmond MSP

Scottish Food and Drink

Scottish produce is world renowned. When celebrity chefs like Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay cook with wild trout and salmon their fish will, more than likely, have come from the banks of the Tay or the Tweed. Similarly, when you say beef, most Michelin-starred chefs automatically put the words 'Aberdeen' and 'Angus' together.

There's a huge market for our venison and lamb, and Scotland is becoming recognised as one of the world's most exciting cheese producers: from Brodick Blue cheese from the Isle of Arran, through to more exotic cheeses like Strathkiness, the Scottish equivalent of Gruyere.

Whisky is Scotland's most famous drink and today there are over a hundred distilleries in Scotland. From Speyside to the Highlands and Islands of the west coast, the range and variety of whiskies on offer is astonishing. The tiny island of Islay, for example, has eight distilleries alone, including Bruichaddich, which still makes its malt using the same Victorian process it did over a century ago.