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Helmsdale
EntityQ188281· pop 13· linked from 149 articles

Also known as Bun Ilidh

Helmsdale (, ) is a village on the east coast of Sutherland, in the Highland council area of Scotland. The modern village was planned in 1814 to resettle communities that had been removed from the surrounding straths as part of the Highland Clearances.

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Place details

Locality
Helmsdale
Region
Alba / Scotland
Country
United Kingdom
Population
637
Timezone
Europe/London

via OpenStreetMap · GeoNames

Air quality

22US AQIGood
PM2.5
3.6 µg/m³
PM10
6.5 µg/m³
As of 2026-08-15 06:00 · Open-Meteo

Key facts

UK place.country
Scotland
UK place.official_name
Helmsdale
UK place.gaelic_name
Bun Ilidh
UK place.scots_name
Helmsdal
UK place.population
764
UK place.os_grid_reference
ND025155
UK place.map_type
Sutherland
UK place.unitary_scotland
Highland
UK place.lieutenancy_scotland
Sutherland
UK place.constituency_westminster
Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross
UK place.constituency_scottish_parliament
Caithness, Sutherland and Ross
UK place.post_town
HELMSDALE
UK place.postcode_district
KW8
UK place.postcode_area
KW
UK place.dial_code
01431
UK place.static_image_name
Helmsdale 01.jpg
UK place.london_distance_mi
478
UK place.edinburgh_distance_mi
151

via Wikipedia infobox

~7 min read

Encyclopedic overview

13 sections
Contents
  • Toponymy
  • History
  • Highland Clearances
  • Gold rush
  • Second World War and after
  • 21st century developments
  • Location and transport
  • Tourism, culture and sport
  • Economy
  • People from Helmsdale
  • See also
  • References
  • External links

Helmsdale (, ) is a village on the east coast of Sutherland, in the Highland council area of Scotland. The modern village was planned in 1814 to resettle communities that had been removed from the surrounding straths as part of the Highland Clearances.

==Toponymy== The River Helmsdale () was noted by Ptolemy as , which remains an obscure name. The Gaelic name for the village, , means 'Ilie-foot'. Norse settlers called the strath , meaning 'Dale of the Helmet', from which the modern village name Helmsdale is derived.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Helmsdale” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

Gallery (2)

On the map

3 mapped locations

Available in 11 languages

via Wikidata sitelinks · CC0