Population Statistics
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Moray · Scotland

Keith population

4,740people · latest estimate

By James Burfield, SEO consultant, Bath · Page updated · GeoNames · World Gazetteer 2005

Keith has a population of 4,740, making it the 5th largest place in Moray. In 2005 the World Gazetteer recorded 4,396, a rise of 7.8% since.

4,396
in 2005
+7.8%
since 2005
#5
of 21 in Moray

The other populations of Keith

The same name covers more than one area, and each has its own figure.

What you meanPopulationSource
The place itself
The populated settlement, roughly the built-up core.
4,740 GeoNames
The place in 2005
The same settlement twenty years earlier.
4,396 World Gazetteer (2005)

Why these differ: which population figure is right? · compare with another place

The 2005 figure is from the World Gazetteer archive and may draw its boundary differently from the current source, so treat the change as indicative. Sources: method.

Year-by-year official estimates for the wider area: Moray population trends, 2001–2024.

Keith in context

16 km
north to Buckie, the nearest larger town
4,740
people live within 10 km
#1,957
largest of 6,358 UK places
Keith in the UK

Distances are straight-line from the settlement's recorded coordinates. The 10 km figure sums the recorded places within that radius, so it describes how built-up the surroundings are rather than people per square kilometre.

The population, measured on a real boundary

What you meanPopulationSource
Keith locality
NRS census geography: the continuously built-up Keith
4,558Census 2022
Keith (GeoNames record)
the figure in this page's heading; boundary unstated
4,740GeoNames

The locality figure is Scotland's Census 2022, summed over the Scottish Postcode Directory's own postcodes for this locality; across all of Scotland that method lands within 601 people of the national census total. Where the two rows disagree, the census locality is the figure to quote.

Food and drink, from the register

CategoryCountPer 10,000
Takeaways511.0
Restaurants and cafés715.4
Pubs and bars24.4
Hotels and B&Bs511.0
Supermarkets and convenience12.2

Registered food establishments in the Keith locality, from the Food Standards Agency register. Scotland runs the Food Hygiene Information Scheme (pass or improvement required) rather than England's 0–5 scores, which changes nothing here: these are counts of premises, not judgments of them.

Age profile

MeasureValue
Median age (exact)48
Under 1514.4%
65 and over26.1%
85 and over4.3%

Scotland's Census 2022 publishes single year of age at output-area level, so this median is exact — the middle resident's actual age, with nothing interpolated. England's published tables stop at five-year bands, which is why English pages label their medians estimated and this one is not. Percentiles compare the 90 Scottish towns of 10,000+ residents with each other, never with England or Wales: their figures are a different census year, and a percentile that quietly mixed the two would be a lie with a percent sign.

Who owns the homes

Measure% of households
Owned, outright or with a mortgage61.6%
  of which owned outright39.5%
Social rented25.7%
Private rented10.1%
Household has no car or van22.6%
Household has two or more30.0%

Scotland's Census 2022, over the 2,284 occupied households of the locality. Shared ownership and shared equity count with mortgaged homes; every share is of households, not residents.

Getting to work

How working residents travelled (census day)Share
Worked mainly from home21.1%
Car or van (of those who travelled)74.3%
Public transport (of those who travelled)5.1%
On foot (of those who travelled)18.5%
Bicycle (of those who travelled)0.5%

Scotland's Census 2022, collected 20 March 2022: past the last legal restrictions, but with home working still far above the old normal, so these are census-day records and mode shares are of the 2,120 employed residents who travelled, never of everyone.

Deprivation

The middle postcode here sits in decile 7 of the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation, where decile 1 is the most deprived tenth of Scotland's data zones and 10 the least. 14% of the locality's postcodes sit in the most deprived three deciles, 0% in the least deprived three.

SIMD 2020, Scotland's own index — never comparable with England's IMD, and never compared here. Weighted by postcodes rather than people, because the postcode file carries no population, and said so for the same reason the postcode-district pages say it.

Care homes, as Scotland's regulator grades them

Care homes for older people in the locality, by their lowest current grade: 1 very good, 1 good.

The Care Inspectorate's six-point scale (excellent down to unsatisfactory), shown by each service's minimum current grade because that is the Inspectorate's own headline convention. Scotland's regulator and scale, never translated into the CQC's words.

Railway stations

Station in the locality: Keith (76,798 entries and exits, ORR estimate).

Stations are the DfT's NaPTAN register located by coordinates; passenger figures are the Office of Rail and Road's estimates, and a station shown without one did not match the ORR table by name. Bus stops are not shown for Scottish towns: the national stop register's west-of-Scotland submission is incomplete enough that a count would mislead, and no figure beats a wrong one.

Go deeper

Population since 2001
Moray, year by year from ONS estimates

Nearby in Moray

#PlacePopulation
1Forres9,900
2Buckie8,430
3Lossiemouth6,840
4Lhanbryde1,970
5Burghead1,840
6Hopeman1,710

All 21 places in Moray →