MacDonald
This is one variant — a specific cloth: this exact thread count and colourway, with its own provenance below. It is one weaving of the sett (the scale-free proportion — the same cloth at any scale or shade), whose colour order is pattern BRBRBRKGRGRG.
Part of the MacDonald tartan — the named design grouping this sett with its other cloths.
Sourced from register-of-tartans. It is a 12 stripe tartan.
Original link https://www.tartanregister.gov.uk/tartanDetails.aspx?ref=2334
2 attestations — the source records this cloth was collapsed from (oldest owns this page)
- 01/01/1819 — MacDonald (register-of-tartans, record)
Scottish Tartans Society notes: This is oldest recorded version of the Clan sett. It varies slightly from those recorded by Logan, Smibert, Grant etc, but the motif is the same throughout. Of the nine independent branches of the Clan Donald, there are at least 27 different setts. It was not until 1947 that the MacDonalds again had a high chief, MacDhomnuill, who by tradition has the final word on the tartans of the clan. That right was granted to Alexander MacDonald of MacDonald whose son Godfrey is now the 8th Chief. Green lightened to show sett. This tartan is worn by 1st Battalion, The Nova Scotia Highlanders (North): a Canadian Reserve Regiment. - 1819 — MacDonald - 1800 (Clan) (tartans-authority, record)
Tartan Society notes: This is oldest recorded version of the Clan sett. It varies slightly from those recorded by Logan, Smibert, Grant etc., but the motif is the same throughout. Of the nine independent branches of the Clan Donald, there are at least 27 different setts. It was not until 1947 that the MacDonalds again had a high chief, MacDhomnuill, who by tradition has the final word on the tartans of the clan. That right was granted to Alexander MacDonald of MacDonald whose son Godfrey is now the 8th Chief. Green lightened to show sett. Same sett as is shown in 1880 Clans Originaux (BW June 2004). Sample in STA's Scarlett Collection.
Dataset — provenance for this record, inherited from the source manifest
- source
- Scottish Register of Tartans
- data captured from
- https://github.com/thetartan/tartan-database/blob/master/data/register-of-tartans/data.csv
- data date
- 1819 (this record)
- licence
- Crown copyright
Capture chain — the hands this data passed through, oldest first; each capture carries its own licence
- Scottish Register of Tartans · Crown copyright
the living register — still published by National Records of Scotland - thetartan/tartan-database 2016-2017 · CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
Levko Kravets's frozen compilation — the capture we vendored, and where its CC licence text came from - this dictionary captured 2026-06-10 · commit 5bf86c7566
each re-capture is a git commit to data/sources
Register references
External register numbers recorded for this tartan.
- Scottish Register of Tartans: 2334
- Scottish Tartans Authority (ITI): 419
- Scottish Tartans World Register: 419
Thread count
DB/34 R4 DB4 R10 DB58 R4 K62 G58 R10 G4 R4 G/34
One full sett is 504 threads.
Palette
| Colour | Shade | OKLCh |
|---|---|---|
| DB | #082077 #082077 | oklch(30.0% 0.149 265.1) |
| G | #008B2A #008B2A | oklch(55.4% 0.170 145.9) |
| K | #000000 #000000 | oklch(0.0% 0.000 0.0) |
| R | #D60020 #D60020 | oklch(55.2% 0.224 25.5) |
Sample pattern
Nearest tartan variants
The nearest existing variants by ΔTartan distance, with this cloth at the top so the swatches line up against it.
Neighbour map
Every grey dot is one of 13621 variants placed by the first two principal components of the ΔTartan feature space (42% of its variance). Red is this tartan; blue dots are its nearest — click one to open its page.
ID: /variants/s12/db17r2db2r5db29r2k31g29r5g2r2g17~x2/