The campaign to keep Scotland in the UK has taken the most votes so far in the Scottish independence referendum, as counting continues across the country.

At the half-way point in the count, the "No" side was on 56% of the vote, with "Yes" on 44%.

By 04:35 BST (05:35 BST), the "No" campaign had more than 903,000 votes, with "Yes" on just over 738,000.

Aberdeen City, the largest area to declare so far, voted "No" by a margin of more than 20,000 votes.

But Dundee backed independence by 53,620 votes to 39,880, while West Dunbartonshire also voted "Yes" by 33,720 to 28,776. North Lanarkshire also voted in favour of independence by about 5,000 votes.

Polling expert Professor John Curtice of Strathclyde University said the results so far suggested the "No" campaign was going to win the referendum.

Clackmannanshire was first to declare, with "No" winning by about 2,600 votes.

Inverclyde voted "No" to leaving the United Kingdom by only 86 votes, while in Renfrewshire the totals were 62,067 for "No" and 55,466 for "Yes".

Alex Salmond

Scottish National Party leader Alex Salmond is en route to the national counting centre in Edinburgh

Voters in the Western Isles, Orkney, Shetland and Midlothian also voted against independence, as did Stirling, Falkirk, East Lothian, Angus, Dumfries and Galloway and East Renfrewshire.

Counting will carry on through the night, with the final result expected after 06:30 BST on Friday.

In other developments:

Police are investigating allegations of electoral fraud relating to 10 ballot papers in Glasgow

The Queen is expected to make a written statement on Friday afternoon, after the result has been confirmed

Prime Minister David Cameron expected to respond to Scotland's decision in a live televised address following the final result

The count in Dundee was briefly suspended due to a fire alarm

For latest results and full coverage, go to bbc.co.uk/scotland-decides

In Inverclyde, "No" received 27,329 and "Yes" 27,243, while in Orkney, "No" won 10,004 votes compared with 4,883 for "Yes".

In Shetland voters rejected independence by 9,951 votes to 5,669 and in the Western Isles, the result was 10,544 to 9,195 in favour of Scotland staying in the UK.