Overlooking the nautical bustle of Aberdeen harbour is the Maritime Museum, centred on a three-storey replica of a North Sea oil-production platform, which explains all you ever wanted to know about the petroleum industry. Other galleries, some situated in Provost Ross's House, the oldest building in the city and part of the museum, cover the shipbuilding, whaling and fishing industries.

　　Sleek and speedy Aberdeen clippers were a 19th-century shipyard speciality, used by British merchants to import tea, wool and exotic goods (opium, for instance) to Britain, and, on the return journey, transport emigrants to Australia.