Industrial Revolution in Scotland by 1800. In 1800, 17 per cent of people in Scotland lived in towns of more than 10,000 inhabitants. By 1850 it was 32 per cent and by 1900 it was 50 per cent. By 1900 one in three of the entire population were in the four cities of Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen. Glasgow emerged as the largest city. Its population in 1780 was 43,000, reaching 147,000 by 1820; by 1901 it had grown to 762,000. This was due to a high birth rate and immigration from the countryside and particularly from Ireland; but from the 1870s there was
Water supply and sanitation in Scotland Water Authority, the West of Scotland Water Authority, and the East of Scotland Water Authority, to prepare them for privatisation. In 1994, the Strathclyde water referendum, an unofficial referendum organised by Strathclyde Regional Council, the largest of the regional councils by population, was held, in which voters voted overwhelmingly against the privatisation proposals. There was also a more general "Save Scotland’s Water" campaign, and in the face of public opposition, the water industry in Scotland remained in the public sector. In 2002 the Scottish Parliament passed the Water Industry (Scotland) Act 2002 merging the three providers into a single one,