Kirkwall, Orkney Islands

This paragraph describes the town’s type, as determined by the USP typology. The typology groups Scottish towns based on socio-demographic characteristics using data from the 2011 census and size classification. Read more about the USP typology in the methodology.

Independent towns have a high number of assets in relation to their population; a strong diversity of jobs; and residents travel shorter distances to travel to work and study. These towns attract people from neighbouring towns to access their assets and jobs.

The USP inter-relationship assessment considers the extent to which places are reliant upon neighbouring localities in terms of 11 different indicators. Read more about how this assessment is calculated in the methodology.

The visualisation below shows the position of this town on the USP inter-relationships scale for each indicator. The data available for each indicator has been given a score on the inter-relationships scale and this score is indicated by the position of the marker in each case. The inter-relationships scale is split into seven possible scores ranging from independent through several levels of interdependence to dependent. The grey lines show the average for towns in this group. All individual indicators have been combined to produce the overarching inter-relationship assessment. Read more about how this is calculated in the methodology.

Similarity is framed in the context of the socio-demographic typology. The town's are then classified by population size and finally ordered within groups based on their inter-relationship scores. Read more about how this is calculated in the methodology.

The dimensions of deprivation used to classify households are indicators based on four selected household characteristics. A household is deprived in a dimension if it meets the following conditions:

• employment: a person in the household aged 16 and over who is not a full-time student is either unemployed or long-term sick or disabled
• education: no person aged 16 to 64 in the household has a qualification of level 2 or above, or no person aged 16 to 18 is a full-time student
• health and disability: any person in the household has 'bad' or 'very bad' general health, or has a long-term limiting health problem or disability
• housing: the household's accommodation is either overcrowded, is in a shared dwelling or does not have central heating

• Coloured lines/pins show the main flows that exceed 2% of this town’s population or 2000 people.
• Grey lines/pins show smaller flows that still exceed 0.5% of this town’s population or 500 people.
• The thickness of each line is proportional to the size of the flow (both inbound and outbound).
• Flows representing less than 10 people in total are not shown.

The amount of grant funding secured by organisations in a town between 2012 – 2015 from among four major providers of grant funding in Scotland.

This is the percentage of retail types in the town in relation to 37 different retail types. The higher the percentage, the greater diversity of retail types. Data has been gathered from the Business Register and Employment Survey. Please refer to the Methodology page for further information.

This is the difference between the number of people moving in and out of the settlement compared with the previous year.

Buildings of architectural or historic importance considered at risk or under threat.

Hectares of play spaces, playing fields, public parks and public gardens per 1000 people.

Average connectivity speed by MBs per second.

The difference between the number of people moving in and out of the settlement compared with the previous year.