 There are almost no written sources from which to re @-@ construct the demography of Medieval Scotland . Estimates have been for the early period made of a population of 10 @,@ 000 inhabitants in Dál Riata and 80 – 100 @,@ 000 for Pictland , which was probably the largest region . From the formation of the Kingdom of Alba in the tenth century , to before the Black Death reached the country in 1349 , estimates based on the amount of farmable land , suggest that population may have grown from half a million to a million . Although there is no reliable documentation on the impact of the plague , if the pattern followed that in England , then the population may have fallen to as low as half a million by the end of the fifteenth century . 
