Buchanan (1850 - Clan)
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 BGKBKGKGKBKRWRKBKGB.
Sourced from tartans-authority. It is a 19 stripe tartan.
Original link https://www.tartanregister.gov.uk/tartanDetails.aspx?ref=151
Provenance
Earliest known date: 1930 Millar and Lang's Scottish Tartans
3 attestations — the source records this cloth was collapsed from (oldest owns this page)
- 1850 — Buchanan (1850 - Clan) (tartans-authority, record)
Because of its popularity the Buchanan has suffered many interpretations and modifications. However, this is now the most popular sett and the accepted clan tartan. It isn't known who changed the original symmetrical design described by Logan in 1831 into this complicated asymmetrical sett but the finger of suspicion probably falls on McIan who illustrated this sett in the Clans of the Scottish Highlands 1845-47 - the popular prints of Highlanders in theatrical poses. In their 1850 book "The Clan and Family Tartans of Scotland" William and Andrew Smith of Mauchline wrote: The pattern here given seems to be universally considered the genuine Buchanan Tartan and we know that it is worn by Archibald Buchanan Esq, of Catrinebank, Ayrshire, whose father's name is identified with one of the first cotton manufactories established in Scotland with Arkwright's improvements." The woven sample in the 1880 Clans Originaux agrees with this sett. This colour interpretation matches a 19th century sample from Kilbarchan Weavers' Cottage. - 1930 — Buchanan (Miller & Lang) Clan Tartan (house-of-tartan, record)
- undated — Buchanan 3 (weddslist, record)
Dataset — provenance for this record, inherited from the source manifest
- source
- Scottish Tartans Authority
- data captured from
- https://github.com/thetartan/tartan-database/blob/master/data/tartans-authority/data.csv
- data date
- 1850 (this record)
- licence
- CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
Capture chain — the hands this data passed through, oldest first; each capture carries its own licence
- Scottish Tartans Authority
the heritage body's archive — its tartan-ferret record browser is retired (links repaired to the SRT, above) - 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 Tartans Authority (ITI): 151
Thread count
DB/18 G46 K6 DB18 K6 R40 W6 R40 K6 DB18 K6 Y40 K6 Y40 K6 DB18 K6 G46 DB/18
One full sett is 744 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) |
| W | #F7F7F7 #F7F7F7 | oklch(97.6% 0.000 89.9) |
| R | #D60020 #D60020 | oklch(55.2% 0.224 25.5) |
| Y | #8B6E00 #8B6E00 | oklch(55.1% 0.113 90.4) |
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/s19/db9g23k3db9k3r20w3r20k3db9k3y20k3y20k3db9k3g23db9~x2/