In Scotland, as in England, ports were the kingdom's gateway to Christendom. Few of medieval Scotland's towns were, however, natural ports. Of fifty-five established burghs by 1300, twenty-three were located on inland sites. Although eleven others were on navigable rivers, most of these arguably owed their origins less to maritime access than to land routes which converged on estuarine fording points. Of the twenty-one coastal burghs many, such as Cromarty and Cullen, were of such minimal economic significance that they can be scarcely classified as either ports or towns. Even among those which did develop a regular maritime trade, the topography of some suggests that maritime access was of secondary significance to their early development. Although, for instance, noted in the early twelfth century as one of only three trading centres north of Forth, it remains uncertain whether Inverkeithing developed around the natural harbour at the mouth of the Keithing burn or around the main thoroughfare which was located on considerably higher ground to the north. A similar observation has been made of Crail and could be made of Montrose, where the distinctive place name of the harbour, Strumnay, suggests a separate origin from that of the adjacent town.

There were few exceptions to the predominantly landward vista of the early Scottish burghs. Aberdeen was probably one, particularly if the plausible identification of its early nucleus as adjacent to the Denburn harbour is accepted. Dundee and Ayr were probably others. These coastal towns were well positioned to exploit the commercial expansion of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, an expansion spawned chiefly by a new Anglo-Norman elite demanding the importation of wine and wheat and the more or less simultaneous emergence of large quantities of wool available for export to the Netherlandish draperies.