With over 635,000 inhabitants, Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland, ahead of Edinburgh, and the third largest city in the United Kingdom after London and Birmingham.

Around 80 AD, the Romans colonised the city, which was probably called Cathures at the time. The Romans later built the Antonine Wall around 140 AD to separate Roman Britain from Celtic and Pictish Caledonia. According to legend, Glasgow itself was founded by the Christian missionary St Mungo in the 6th century. He is said to have built a church on the site of today's cathedral. Construction of St Mungo's Cathedral began in the 12th century. In 1451, the University of Glasgow was founded by papal decree. By the beginning of the 16th century, Glasgow had become an important religious and academic centre.

The Gallery of Modern Art is housed in a neoclassical building, built in 1778 as the townhouse of William Cunninghame of Lainshaw, a wealthy Glasgow Tobacco Lord who made his fortune through the triangular slave trade. The building has undergone a series of different uses. It was bought in 1817 by the Royal Bank of Scotland, it then became the Royal Exchange.

In 1954 Glasgow District Libraries moved the Stirling's Library into the building. It also housed the Library of Patents and the Commercial Library. The Gallery of Modern Art opened here in 1996.

Alexander Hamilton of the unemployed, Alasdair Gray, 1977