City, council area (pop., 2001: 212,125), and commercial port on the North Sea, eastern Scotland.
It constitutes the council area of Aberdeen, an enclave within the surrounding council area of Aberdeenshire, which was also the name of the historic county of which Aberdeen was the seat. Situated at the mouths of the Rivers Dee and Don, it is the chief port of northern Scotland. It was a royal burgh from the 12th century and a Scottish royal residence in the 12th–14th centuries. It supported Edward I . From the 1970s Aberdeen developed rapidly as the principal British centre of the North Sea oil industry and its associated service and supply industries.