Cardonald (/kɑːrˈdɒnəld/; Scots: Cardonal, Scottish Gaelic: Cair Dhòmhnaill) is an outlying suburb of the Scottish city of Glasgow. Formerly a village in its own right, it lies to the southwest of the city and is bounded to the south by the White Cart Water. The area was part of Renfrewshire until 1926 when the villages of Cardonald, Crookston, Halfway and their surrounding farmland were annexed to Glasgow.

This place-name was first recorded in 1413 as "Cardownalde" and means ("the fort of Donald"). Cair means 'a fort' or 'a fortified place', and Donald came from either the Gaelic male personal name Dòmhnall or its Cumbric equivalent Dyfnwal, both of which are usually anglicised as 'Donald' (three kings of Strathclyde were named Dyfnwal). The fortalice of Cardonald (known as the Place of Cardonald, Cardonald Castle, or Cardonald House) was first recorded in 1565, but the place-name suggests this later medieval structure was built on the site of an older fortification.

In 1413 the lands of Cardownalde in Renfrewshire were the property of Johannes Norwald (John Norwald), dominus (lord) of Cardownalde. His granddaughter and heiress, Marion Stewart (daughter of Isabella Norwald of Cardonald and Sir William Stewart of Castlemilk), married Allan Stewart, establishing the line of Stewarts of Cardonald. The Cardonald Stewarts were a junior branch of the House of Stewart. Allan Stewart of Cardonald, the first Stewart of Cardonald, was the younger son of John Stewart, 1st Earl of Lennox. The Cardonald Stewarts had their seat at the Place of Cardonald (also known as Cardonald Castle or Cardonald House), built in 1565. It was demolished and replaced by a farmhouse – Cardonald Place Farm – in 1848. A corn mill existed in Cardonald from around 1789 until it was demolished in 1958. The site of Cardonald Mill is now occupied by the houses on Lade Terrace.

The line of the Stewarts of Cardonald ended with Allan's great-grandson, James Stewart of Cardonald (1512–1584). He had served as a captain in the Scottish Guards of the Kings of France, and is buried in Paisley Abbey. As he had no issue, the lands of Cardonald passed to his sister's son, Walter Stewart, 1st Lord Blantyre. His family resided at the Place of Cardonald for generations, and retained lands in Cardonald until the 20th century. With the death of the 12th Lord Blantyre in 1900, his estates passed to his grandson, William Arthur Baird.

The transformation of Cardonald from a rural to an urban community was largely brought about by the coming of the railway and the tram in the 19th century. The first railway to reach Cardonald was the Glasgow, Paisley and Greenock Railway, with a station (then known as Moss Road station) opening on Berryknowes Road in 1843. However, due to poor traffic returns, this station was closed in 1845. In 1879, the present day Cardonald railway station opened on the same site. The siting of this station influenced the building of the terrace of houses at Hillington Park Circus and the large country houses of Dalveon and Turnberry on Berryknowes Road, along with the terraced houses in Kingsland and Queensland Drive. There was also the lodge house on Berryknowes road next to Dalveon house which was part of the estate (now Craigton cemetery) that contained Cruickston Hall (now the site of the new Lourdes Primary School) and Craigton House.

With the arrival of the electric tram in 1903, the growth of Cardonald began in earnest along the stretch of Paisley Road West between the villages of Cardonald and Halfway, with the building of Cardonald Police station (1905) and Nazareth House (1906). In 1926, Glasgow Corporation bought the Cardonald estates from William Arthur Baird. The final upsurge in house building in the area took place from 1931, when most of the existing farm land disappeared, with the building of the North Cardonald and South Cardonald houses by the Western Heritable Investment Company after 1935. North Cardonald was mostly made up of owner-occupied houses and council homes owned by Glasgow Corporation (the predecessor to Glasgow City Council), while South Cardonald was mostly composed of owner-occupied and privately rented cottage flats. The 1930s also saw the building of two cinemas in the area, The Westway (1934–1960) and the Aldwych/Vogue (1938–1964). The Westway later became the Flamingo ballroom, and was then a bingo hall until its demolition in 2003. The Vogue was demolished in 1964. Both have supermarkets in their place today.

In the 1950s, the Corporation erected the UK's first high-rise flats in the area. Although only 10 storeys high, the Moss Heights flats were the first of many high-rise blocks to be built in Glasgow. They were revolutionary in the fact that their heating system was supplied from a central coal-fired boiler house. They have been renovated and survive well into the 21st century, unlike other developments constructed in later decades.

The first school in the vicinity of Cardonald was established at Halfway in 1790, by a local blacksmith who taught the rudiments of reading, writing and arithmetic. In 1860, Cardonald School was established when a school building and teacher's house were built at the corner of Paisley Road West and Lammermoor Avenue. The two-roomed, single-storey school building was extended in 1899 with the addition of a second storey, and was further extended in 1911.