Deaths rates from heart disease between 2004/05 and 2013/14 dropped by 43%, according to official figures.
The number of people dying after a stroke also decreased by 41%.
The Scottish government said the figures showed its strategy for tackling heart disease was working.
Figures from ISD Scotland found the gap in death rates between the most and least deprived communities had narrowed by 33%.
For patients admitted to hospital with their first heart attack, the chances of surviving at least 30 days have risen from 85% to 92% over the same period.
The figures also show a 30% drop in the number of new cases of heart disease.
In 2013 there were 7,239 deaths in Scotland where coronary heart disease was the underlying cause.
Treating and preventing heart disease is a national clinical priority for Scotland.
Public Health Minister Maureen Watt welcomed the figures.
"It's tremendous news that fewer people are developing heart disease or suffering strokes, and that fewer people are dying," she said.
"I'm also encouraged to see that health inequalities are reducing in this area, with the gap in mortality rates between the most deprived and least deprived communities falling over time."

Bromyard Community Hospital in Herefordshire is drafting in help from the Philippines and Europe to bridge the 80-post gap.
It comes after staff agreed to work extra hours to save the in-patient ward from closure.
But The Wye Valley NHS Trust, which runs the hospital, said this was a temporary measure.
Paul Hooton, the hospital's deputy director of nursing, said: "We are very pleased with our staff and how they have stepped up and said they could do extra to help us to keep in-patients open.
"But we have to review it on an ongoing basis to make sure that we can ultimately deliver safe inpatient care."
"We have a major recruitment campaign going on locally to try and attract nurses living within our local community back into nursing."
Its recruitment advert said it was looking for newly-qualified nurses and people who had left the profession.
Mr Hooton added: "To put it into context, we are not the only trust in the country that is desperate to recruit nurses - this is a national problem."
Mortality rates for two of Scotland's biggest killers, stroke and heart disease, have fallen in the past decade.
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Hospital bosses say they will continue to hire foreign workers to try and solve a "desperate" shortage of nurses.