Who owns Scotland? Meet some of the 400 toffs who own half the country

Scotland has one of the most extreme concentrations of land ownership of anywhere in the western world.

Staggeringly, just 432 people own roughly half of the nation’s land. Some of these landowners have estates which have passed down their families through generations - but others in the super-wealthy elite from around the world have also been getting in on the act.

Who owns Scotland in profile - five famous super-wealthy landowners

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Anders Holch Povlsen

The Danish clothing billionaire is now Scotland’s biggest private landowner, with more than 12 estates across the Highlands including the stunning 42,000-acre Glenfeshie Estate in the Cairngorms.

Tycoon Povlsen, 52, worth an estimated £4.5billion thanks to his Bestseller clothes empire and his shares in the Asos online retailer, says he fell in love with Scotland as a child during fishing holidays in the 1980s.

He and his wife are estimated to own about 220,000 acres across the Highlands with his empire growing by more than a third since 2012.

The Duke of Buccleuch

For generations, the Duke of Buccleuch was the biggest landowner in Scotland but recently, a series of land sales has put him in second place.

The current Duke of Buccleuch Richard Scott, the 10th Duke, still owns about 200,000 acres of land, chiefly in the south of Scotland.

King Charles

Much of the land owned by the monarch in Scotland is managed by Crown Estate Scotland and held in trust for the Scottish people, with revenue generated going to the Scottish Government. King Charles privately owns his world-famous residence of Balmoral.

Royal holdings include more than 50,000 acres of rural land across four estates.

Besides land, the Crown also owns rights to most naturally occurring gold and silver, salmon fishing rights, and access to the seabed.

Sofie Kirk Kristiansen

Another billionaire Danish family who have taken Scotland to heart are the Kirk Kristiansens - the family owns the Lego group.

Strathconon Estate in Ross-shire was bought in 1995 by Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, whose grandfather Ole invented Lego.

His daughter Sofie, 48 - worth an estimated £5.5billion - is the director of the company that owns more than 80,000 acres of Scottish land.

Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid al-Maktoum

The billionaire ruler of Dubai has been busy snapping up about 63,000 acres of the Scottish countryside.

His holdings include Inverinate Estate in Wester Ross. The site already boasts a triple helipad and a 16-bed luxury hunting lodge - but he wants to build a new lodge which has been controversial with locals.

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