Why on earth do you think they wouldn't?
This isn't some sort of separatist movement which has taken an area of land and declared themselves a country, this is a legal process of undoing a treaty from 300 years ago...

Also many maps will likely already have England, Scotland and Wales indicated on the landmass which makes up Britain so it isn't like it's a massive undertaking.

I'm just stating what I was taught in high school '96-'00, which I suppose it could have changed in 14 years, but when I was in school our government teacher told us that the nation (US in my case) had to acknowledge the independence before they would bother updating their maps and just because the nation (in this case UK) acknowledges it doesn't mean other nations will. The US likely won't update our maps until we have communication between us and Scotland (if it gets its independence).

EDIT: Looks like it will be a no, according to the link dsm1891 posted.

While high by most voting standards, 84% turnout on something like this feels kind of depressing.

As for the maps thing, you're right, but most everyone is on good terms with scotland, and would recognize their status as an independent nation pretty much immediately. This isn't like China and Taiwan or something.

While high by most voting standards, 84% turnout on something like this feels kind of depressing.

I know what you mean because that means that 16% of their own countrymen didn't even care enough about it to vote for their independence. I'm hoping Highland votes yes, otherwise that is going to be even more depressing (I would think).

While high by most voting standards, 84% turnout on something like this feels kind of depressing.

I know what you mean because that means that 16% of their own countrymen didn't even care enough about it to vote for their independence. I'm hoping Highland votes yes, otherwise that is going to be even more depressing (I would think).

They did the right thing and voted no across the country. surprisingly almost every region was a majority no vote, even in the heartland of the SNP.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/events/scotland-decides/results

How utterly boring.

How utterly boring.

While high by most voting standards, 84% turnout on something like this feels kind of depressing.

I know what you mean because that means that 16% of their own countrymen didn't even care enough about it to vote for their independence. I'm hoping Highland votes yes, otherwise that is going to be even more depressing (I would think).

Some people may genuinely not know - that doesn't mean you don't care or you wouldn't be affected. But given the difficulties in predicting the effects both politically and economically, and weighing those things against each other, I can understand people not being sure, despite it being a major issue. Whilst many people who are undecided may have defaulted to "No", I think there's an argument that the right thing to do is to not vote either way. (And yes, you could go and spoil the ballot, but I don't think that implies the right message either.)

How utterly boring.

I disagree. It is interesting to me. When you have an overwhelming majority, 85%, 90%, that gets boring. The decision is already known at the outset.

In this case, only 5% of the population changing their mind could flip the results in a few years. 5% is a fairly small number.

Whenever results are close like this it mean can mean that politicians become even more polarized in an attempt to push the numbers harder, or it can mean groups work together to give the people what they want. Either way it is usually a more difficult political environment.

The US has pushed into the increased polarization. The gap between the parties is even smaller than that. In the last national election, a minor change in 3 states (Florida, Ohio, and Virginia) would have flipped it. It was a tiny number, zero point two percent of the vote, would have put Romney in charge instead of Obama. Both sides are screaming in increasingly shrill voices in attempts to claim that very narrow sliver of the population. It would have been (and still would be) so much better of both sides acted the parts of the statesman and said that while they were elected they will try to also represent both sides of the near-equal split. Immediately after the elections there was a brief period of both sides saying that they would respect the views of the other half of the population, but it didn't last.

From the talking heads in the media and politics, it sounds like the political groups are at least talking about offering more local autonomy. So hopefully that works out for you. With any luck the politicians will actually work to represent the individuals rather then spending their days trying to forcefully convert their political opponents.

Why would that be depressing?

It is all a matter of perception. Some of them may perceive everyone voting no as saying they couldn't handle being independent. Others may perceive it differently and think worse while others will see it for what it is and know that they were happy with how things are and didn't want to be their own country.