George Square (Scottish Gaelic: Ceàrnag Sheòrais) is the principal civic square in the city of Glasgow, Scotland. It is one of six squares in the city centre, the others being Cathedral Square, St Andrew's Square, St Enoch Square, Royal Exchange Square, and Blythswood Square on Blythswood Hill.

Named after King George III and initially laid out in 1781 but not developed for another twenty years, George Square is surrounded by architecturally important buildings including on the east side the palatial Municipal Chambers, also known as the City Chambers, whose foundation stone was laid in 1883, and on the west side by the Merchants' House [de]. Built by Glasgow Corporation, the Chambers are the continuing headquarters of Glasgow City Council. Joseph Swan's panoramic engraving of 1829 shows the early development of the square and its surrounding buildings.

The square boasts an important collection of statues and monuments, including those dedicated to Robert Burns, James Watt, Sir Robert Peel and Sir Walter Scott.

Medieval Glasgow had a large area of common pasture to the west and north of the city. Every day, the town herd took the cattle of the burghers along an unpaved road called Cow Lone which led from the Trongate's West Port to pasture on the common, then on to Cowcaddens where the cattle were milked in the evening before returning. Long narrow back gardens or riggs ran north from Trongate properties, forming the Langcroft area, and along its northern boundary Back Cow Lone provided an alternative route west from the High Street. Cow Lone ran north between the Meadowflat lands (to the west) and the Ramshorn croft, which was bounded to the north by Rottenrow lane, and on the east by Deanside Brae, down via Greyfriar's Wynd (Shuttle Street) to Candleriggs. These lands became George Hutcheson's property in 1609. Hutcheson's Hospital tried to lease areas to small crofts or gardeners but the ground was poor. In 1772 the city magistrates bought the lands of Ramshorn and Meadowflats.

From 1750 wealth from tobacco, sugar and cotton brought rapid expansion westwards, with new streets laid out along the riggs, including, starting at Argyle Street, Virginia Street in 1753 and Miller Street in 1762. Cow Lone, impassible in wet weather, was renamed Queen street after Queen Charlotte in 1766, and paved as far as the junction with Back Cow Lone, which in 1772 was straightened and renamed Ingram Street. In that year the town's surveyor, James Barrie (or Barry), produced a grid plan for the Ramshorn lands, similar to planned development in London and Craig's 1766 gridded plan for Edinburgh's New Town. Barrie produced another plan in 1781, and in 1782 Glasgow's council adopted a grid incorporating a large square. This provided "a regular plan to the line of the streets in which every purchaser was bound to keep", later extended over Meadowflats. In 1782 a house for two families was built in George Square, then there was a four-year pause before rapid growth began. Directly in line with the projected extension of Queen Street, a large mansion was built around 1783 in grounds just south of Rottenrow lane as Bailie George Crawford's Lodging, later known as Glasgow House.

George's square, as it was known initially, was named after King George III. New streets named after royalty included Hanover street and Frederick street. Around 1790 the developments north of Trongate became known as Glasgow's New Town (in post-1980 regeneration this general area was rebranded as the Merchant City).

Between 1787 and the 1820s Georgian terraces were built around the perimeter of George's square. The west side (in line with Queen Street) was a three-storey high block of six tenements, which had three entrances with passageways to turnpike stairs at the back for the upper flats. These "plain dwellings" were "the residences of many most respectable families", but were criticised as looking like soldier's barracks or a cotton mill. The east side was a two-storey high terrace of "comfortable dwelling-houses with a double flight of steps to the second storey". By 1807 a hotel occupied the south end of this terrace, it later became the George Hotel. On the south and north sides, terraces of large townhouses had three storeys above a basement lit by a sunken area fenced off from the pavement. As Glasgow historian James Denholm wrote of "George's square" in 1804, "The buildings here are very elegant, particularly those upon the north; which, from the beauty of the design, and taste displayed in the execution, surpass by far any other either in this city or in Scotland." The north side was completed 1807–1818 with three imposing townhouses built between Queen Street and Hanover Street.

James Ewing of Strathleven bought Glasgow House in 1815, its grounds became known as the "Queen Street Park". Crows nested in tall trees around his mansion, and he was nicknamed "Craw Ewing". The centre of George Square had been used as a tip for surplus soil and debris around a stagnant pool, it was enclosed with a paling fence and used for grazing sheep. The first statue, erected in 1819 on the south of the square facing Miller Street, commemorated Sir John Moore of Corunna.