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Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. It is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh had a population of in , making it the second-most-populous city in Scotland and the seventh-most-populous in the United Kingdom. The wider metropolitan area had a population of 912,490 in the same year.
Recognised as the capital of Scotland since at least the 15th century, Edinburgh is the seat of the Scottish Government, the Scottish Parliament, the highest courts in Scotland, and the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the official residence of the British monarch in Scotland. It is also the annual venue of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. The city has long been a centre of education, particularly in the fields of medicine, Scots law, literature, philosophy, the sciences and engineering. The University of Edinburgh was founded in 1582 and is now one of three universities in the city. The financial centre of Scotland, Edinburgh is the second-largest financial centre in the United Kingdom, the fourth-largest in Europe, and the thirteenth-largest in the world.
The city is a cultural centre, and is the home of institutions including the National Museum of Scotland, the National Library of Scotland, and the Scottish National Gallery. The city is also known for the Edinburgh International Festival and the Fringe, the latter being the world's largest annual international arts festival. Historic sites in Edinburgh include Edinburgh Castle, the Palace of Holyroodhouse, St Giles' Cathedral, Greyfriars Kirk, Canongate Kirk and the extensive Georgian New Town built in the 18th and 19th centuries. The Old Town and the New Town are together listed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, and the site has been managed by Edinburgh World Heritage since 1999. The city's historical and cultural attractions have made it Britain's second-most-visited tourist destination, attracting 5.3 million visits, including 2.4 million from overseas, in 2023.
Edinburgh is governed by the City of Edinburgh Council, a unitary authority. The City of Edinburgh council area had an estimated population of in , and includes outlying towns and villages which are not part of Edinburgh proper. The city is in the Lothian region and was historically part of the shire of Midlothian (also called Edinburghshire).
Edinburgh has been popularly called the Athens of the North since the early 19th century. References to Athens, such as Athens of Britain and Modern Athens, had been made as early as the 1760s. The similarities were seen to be topographical but also intellectual. Edinburgh's Castle Rock reminded returning Grand Tour of the Athens Acropolis, as did aspects of the neoclassical architecture and layout of New Town. In 1818, naturalist Edward Daniel Clarke called Edinburgh "a very correct model of a Grecian city", pointing out perceived similarities between both cities and their (respectively, Leith and Piraeus). Intellectually, the Scottish Enlightenment, with its Humanism and Rationalism outlook, was influenced by Ancient Greek philosophy. In 1822 the English landscape painter Hugh William Williams organised an exhibition that showed his paintings of Athens alongside views of Edinburgh, and the idea of a direct parallel between both cities quickly caught the popular imagination. When plans were drawn up in the early 19th century to architecturally develop Calton Hill, the design of the National Monument directly copied Athens' Parthenon. Tom Stoppard's character Archie of Jumpers said, perhaps playing on Reykjavík meaning "smoky bay", that the "Reykjavík of the South" would be more appropriate.Stoppard, Tom. Jumpers, Grove Press, 1972, p. 69.
The city has also been known by several Latin names, such as Edinburgum, while the adjectival forms Edinburgensis and Edinensis are used in educational and scientific contexts.
Edina is a late 18th-century poetical form used by the Scottish poets Robert Fergusson and Robert Burns. "Embra" or "Embro" are colloquialisms from the same time, as in Robert Garioch's Embro to the Ploy.
Ben Jonson described it as "Britaine's other eye", The Cambridge Companion to Ben Jonson . Retrieved 17 April 2007. and Sir Walter Scott referred to it as "yon Empress of the North". Marmion A Tale of Flodden Field by Walter Scott . Retrieved 17 April 2007. Robert Louis Stevenson, also a son of the city, wrote that Edinburgh "is what Paris ought to be".
When the Roman Empire arrived in Lothian at the end of the 1st century AD, they found a Celtic Britons Celtic tribe whose name they recorded as the Votadini. The Votadini transitioned into the Gododdin kingdom in the Early Middle Ages, with Eidyn serving as one of the kingdom's districts. During this period, the Castle Rock site, thought to have been the stronghold of Din Eidyn, emerged as the kingdom's major centre. (1997). 9780903903127, Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. ISBN 9780903903127 The medieval Welsh language poem Y Gododdin describes a war band from across the Brittonic world who gathered in Eidyn before a fateful raid; this may describe a historical event around AD 600.
In 638 the Gododdin stronghold was besieged by forces loyal to King Oswald of Northumbria, and around this time, control of Lothian passed to the Angles. Their influence continued for the next three centuries until around 950, when, during the reign of Indulf, son of Constantine II, the "burh" (fortress), named in the 10th-century Pictish Chronicle as oppidum Eden, was abandoned to the Scots. It thenceforth remained, for the most part, under their jurisdiction.
The royal burgh was founded by King David I in the early 12th century on land belonging to the Crown, though the date of its charter is unknown. The first documentary evidence of the medieval burgh is a royal charter, , by King David I granting a burgage in burgo meo de Edenesburg to the Priory of Dunfermline. The shire of Edinburgh seems also to have been created during David's reign, possibly covering all of Lothian at first, but by 1305 the eastern and western parts of Lothian had become East Lothian and West Lothian, leaving Edinburgh as the county town of a shire covering the central part of Lothian, which was called Edinburghshire or Midlothian (the latter name being an informal, but commonly used, alternative until the county's name was legally changed in 1947).
Edinburgh was largely under English control from 1291 to 1314 and from 1333 to 1341, during the Wars of Scottish Independence. When the English invaded Scotland in 1298, Edward I of England chose not to enter Edinburgh but passed by it with his army.
In the middle of the 14th century the French chronicler Jean Froissart described it as the capital of Scotland (c. 1365), and James III (1451–1488) referred to it in the 15th century as "the principal burgh of our kingdom". In 1482 James III "granted and perpetually confirmed to the said Provost, Bailies, Clerk, Council, and Community, and their successors, the office of Sheriff within the Burgh for ever, to be exercised by the Provost for the time as Sheriff, and by the Bailies for the time as Sheriffsdepute conjunctly and severally; with full power to hold Courts, to punish transgressors not only by banishment but by death, to appoint officers of Court, and to do everything else appertaining to the office of Sheriff; as also to apply to their own proper use the fines and escheats arising out of the exercise of the said office." Despite being burnt by the English in 1544, Edinburgh continued to develop and grow, and was at the centre of events in the 16th-century Scottish Reformation and 17th-century Covenanter. In 1582 Edinburgh's town council was given a royal charter by King James VI and I permitting the establishment of a university; founded as Tounis College (Town's College), the institution developed into the University of Edinburgh, which contributed to Edinburgh's central intellectual role in subsequent centuries.
In the 17th century Edinburgh's boundaries were still defined by the city's defensive town walls. As a result, the city's growing population was accommodated by increasing the height of the houses. Buildings of 11 storeys or more were common, and have been described as forerunners of the modern-day skyscraper. Most of these old structures were replaced by the predominantly Victorian era buildings seen in today's Old Town. In 1611 an act of parliament created the High Constables of Edinburgh to keep order in the city, thought to be the oldest statutory police force in the world.
By the first half of the 18th century, Edinburgh was described as one of Europe's most densely populated, overcrowded, and unsanitary towns. "... I believe, this may be said with truth, that in no city in the world so many people live in so little room as at Edinburgh"."...I make no manner of doubt but that the High Street in Edinburgh is inhabited by a greater number of persons than any street in Europe". Visitors were struck by the fact that the social classes shared the same urban space, even inhabiting the same tenement buildings; although here a form of social segregation did prevail, whereby shopkeepers and tradesmen tended to occupy the cheaper-to-rent cellars and garrets, while the more well-to-do professional classes occupied the more expensive middle storeys.
During the Jacobite rising of 1745, Edinburgh was briefly occupied by the Jacobite "Highland Army" before its march into England. After its eventual defeat at Culloden, there followed a period of reprisals and pacification, largely directed at the rebellious Scottish clan.--These clans were mainly Episcopalian (70 per cent) and Roman Catholic (30 per cent), p.151. In Edinburgh, the Town Council, keen to emulate London by initiating city improvements and expansion to the north of the castle, (1994). 9780002550826, HarperCollins. ISBN 9780002550826 reaffirmed its belief in the Union and loyalty to the Hanoverian monarch George III by its choice of names for the streets of the New Town: for example, Tudor rose Street and Thistle Street; and for the royal family, George Street, Queen Street, Hanover Street, Frederick Street and Princes Street (in honour of George's two sons). The consistently geometric layout of the plan for the extension of Edinburgh was the result of a major competition in urban planning staged by the Town Council in 1766. Alexis Joachimides, "Edinburgh's First New Town from a Transnational Perspective – Continental Sources for Eighteenth-Century Town Planning in Britain", in Maria Effinger, et al. (eds.), Von analogen und digitalen Zugängen zur Kunst: Festschrift für Hubertus Kohle zum 60. Geburtstag (Heidelberg University: arthistoricum.net, 2019), pp. 71–82.
In the second half of the century, the city was at the heart of the Scottish Enlightenment, when thinkers like David Hume, Adam Smith, James Hutton and Joseph Black were familiar figures in its streets. Edinburgh became a major intellectual centre, earning it the nickname "Athens of the North" because of its many neo-classical buildings and reputation for learning, recalling ancient Athens. In the 18th-century novel The Expedition of Humphry Clinker by Tobias Smollett one character describes Edinburgh as a "hotbed of genius". Edinburgh was also a major centre for the Scottish book trade. The highly successful London bookseller Andrew Millar was apprenticed there to James McEuen.
From the 1770s onwards, the professional and business classes gradually deserted the Old Town in favour of the more elegant "one-family" residences of the New Town, a migration that changed the city's social character. According to the foremost historian of this development, "Unity of social feeling was one of the most valuable heritages of old Edinburgh, and its disappearance was widely and properly lamented."
Since the 1990s a new "financial district", including the Edinburgh International Conference Centre, has grown mainly on demolished railway property to the west of the castle, stretching into Fountainbridge, a run-down 19th-century industrial suburb which has undergone radical change since the 1980s with the demise of industrial and brewery premises. This ongoing development has enabled Edinburgh to maintain its place as the United Kingdom's second largest financial and administrative centre after London. Financial services now account for a third of all commercial office space in the city. The development of Edinburgh Park, a new business and technology park covering , west of the city centre, has also contributed to the District Council's strategy for the city's major economic regeneration.
In 1998 the Scotland Act, which came into force the following year, established a Devolution Scottish Parliament and Scottish Executive (renamed the Scottish Government since September 2007). Both based in Edinburgh, they are responsible for governing Scotland while reserved matters such as defence, foreign affairs, and some elements of income tax remain the responsibility of the Parliament of the United Kingdom in London.
Other prominent landforms, such as Calton Hill and Corstorphine Hill, are also products of glacial erosion. The Braid Hills and Blackford Hill are a series of small summits to the south of the city centre that command expansive views looking northwards over the urban area to the Firth of Forth.
Edinburgh is drained by the river named the Water of Leith, which rises at the Colzium Springs in the Pentland Hills and runs for through the south and west of the city, emptying into the Firth of Forth at Leith. The nearest the river gets to the city centre is at Dean Village on the north-western edge of the New Town, where a deep gorge is spanned by Thomas Telford's Dean Bridge, built in 1832 for the road to Queensferry. The Water of Leith Walkway is a mixed-use trail that follows the course of the river for from Balerno to Leith.
Excepting the shoreline of the Firth of Forth, Edinburgh is encircled by a green belt, designated in 1957, which stretches from Dalmeny in the west to Prestongrange in the east. With an average width of the principal objectives of the green belt were to contain the outward expansion of the city and to prevent the agglomeration of urban areas. Expansion affecting the green belt is strictly controlled but developments such as Edinburgh Airport and the Royal Highland Showground at Ingliston lie within the zone. Similarly, suburbs such as Juniper Green and Balerno are situated on green belt land. One feature of the Edinburgh green belt is the inclusion of parcels of land within the city which are designated green belt, even though they do not connect with the peripheral ring. Examples of these independent wedges of green belt include Holyrood Park and Corstorphine Hill.
The historic centre of Edinburgh is divided into two by the broad green swathe of Princes Street Gardens. To the south, the view is dominated by Edinburgh Castle, built high on Castle Rock, and the long sweep of the Old Town descending towards Holyrood Palace. To the north lie Princes Street and the New Town.
The West End includes the financial district, with insurance and banking offices as well as the Edinburgh International Conference Centre.
The castle is perched on top of a rocky crag (the remnant of an extinct volcano), and the Royal Mile runs down the crest of a ridge from it, terminating at Holyrood Palace. Minor streets (called closes or ) lie on either side of the main spine, forming a herringbone pattern. Due to space restrictions imposed by the narrowness of this landform, the Old Town became home to some of the earliest "high rise" residential buildings. Multi-storey dwellings known as lands were the norm from the 16th century onwards, with ten and eleven storeys being typical, and one even reaching fourteen or fifteen storeys. Vaults below street level were inhabited to accommodate the influx of incomers, particularly Irish immigrants, during the Industrial Revolution. The street has several fine public buildings such as St Giles' Cathedral, the City Chambers and the Law Courts. Other places of historical interest nearby are Greyfriars Kirkyard and Mary King's Close. The Grassmarket, running deep below the castle, is connected by the steep double terraced Victoria Street. The street layout is typical of the old quarters of many Northern European cities.
The New Town was an 18th-century solution to the problem of an increasingly crowded city, which had been confined to the ridge sloping down from the castle. In 1766 a competition to design a "New Town" was won by James Craig, a 27-year-old architect. The plan was a rigid, ordered grid, which fitted in well with Enlightenment ideas of rationality. The principal street was to be George Street, running along the natural ridge to the north of what became known as the "Old Town". To either side of it are two other main streets: Princes Street and Queen Street. Princes Street has become Edinburgh's main shopping street and now has few of its Georgian buildings in their original state. The three main streets are connected by a series of streets running perpendicular to them. The east and west ends of George Street are terminated by St Andrew Square and Charlotte Square respectively. ]] The latter, designed by Robert Adam, influenced the architectural style of the New Town into the early 19th century. Bute House, the official residence of the First Minister of Scotland, is on the north side of Charlotte Square.
The hollow between the Old and New Towns was formerly the Nor Loch, which was created for the town's defence but came to be used by the inhabitants for dumping their sewage. It was drained by the 1820s as part of the city's northward expansion. Craig's original plan included an ornamental canal on the site of the loch, but this idea was abandoned. Soil excavated while laying the foundations of buildings in the New Town was dumped on the site of the loch to create the slope connecting the Old and New Towns known as The Mound.
In the middle of the 19th century the National Gallery of Scotland and the Royal Scottish Academy Building were built on The Mound, and tunnels for the railway line between Haymarket and Waverley stations were driven through it.
The coastal suburb of Portobello is characterised by Georgian villas, Victorian tenements, a beach and promenade, and cafés, bars, restaurants and independent shops. There are rowing and sailing clubs, a restored Victorian swimming pool, and Victorian Turkish baths.
Given Edinburgh's position between the coast and hills, it is renowned as "the windy city", with the prevailing wind direction coming from the south-west, which is often associated with warm, unstable air from the North Atlantic Current that can give rise to rainfall – although considerably less than cities to the west, such as Glasgow. Rainfall is distributed fairly evenly throughout the year. Winds from an easterly direction are usually drier but considerably colder, and may be accompanied by haar, a persistent coastal fog. Vigorous Atlantic depressions, known as European windstorms, can affect the city between October and April.
Located slightly north of the city centre, the weather station at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) has been an official weather station for the Met Office since 1956. The Met Office operates its own weather station at Gogarbank on the city's western outskirts, near Edinburgh Airport. This slightly inland station has a slightly wider temperature span between seasons, is cloudier and somewhat wetter, but differences are minor.
Temperature and rainfall records have been kept at the Royal Observatory since 1764.
Edinburgh has a high proportion of young adults, with 19.5% of the population in their 20s (exceeded only by Aberdeen) and 15.2% in their 30s which is the highest in Scotland. The proportion of Edinburgh's population born in the UK fell from 92% to 84% between 2001 and 2011, while the proportion of White Scottish-born fell from 78% to 70%. Of those Edinburgh residents born in the UK, 335,000 or 83% were born in Scotland, with 58,000 or 14% being born in England.
| + Demographics of Edinburgh by ethnic group ! rowspan="2" | Ethnic group ! colspan="2" | 1991As UK Census data post 2001 is unavailable through the ONS website, it has been recommended to use archival census collection websites to obtain data. Data is taken from United Kingdom Casweb Data services of the United Kingdom 1991 Census on Ethnic Data for Scotland. (Table 6) This information is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence ! colspan="2" | 2001 ! colspan="2" | 2011 ! colspan="2" | 2022 Alternative URL 'Search data by location' > 'Local Authority (CA2019)' > 'City of Edinburgh' > 'Ethnic group, national identity, language and religion' > 'Ethnic Group' | |||
| White: Scottish people | – | – | 354,053 | 78.9% | 334,987 | 70.2% | 298,533 | 58.0% |
| White: White British | – | – | 51,407 | 11.4% | 56,132 | 11.7% | 69,829 | 13.6% |
| White: Irish Briton | 5,518 | 1.31% | 6,470 | 1.4% | 8,603 | 1.8% | 10,326 | 2.0% |
| White: Irish Traveller | – | – | – | – | 388 | – | 256 | – |
| White: White Polish | – | – | – | – | 12,820 | 2.68% | 16,351 | 3.18% |
| White: Other | – | – | 18,439 | 4.1% | 24,237 | 5.1% | 41,449 | 8.1% |
| Asian, Asian Scottish or Asian British: British Indian | 1,176 | 0.28% | 2,384 | 0.53% | 6,470 | 1.35% | 12,414 | 2.41% |
| Asian, Asian Scottish or Asian British: Pakistani | 2,625 | 0.62% | 3,928 | 0.87% | 5,858 | 1.22% | 7,454 | 1.45% |
| Asian, Asian Scottish or Asian British: Bangladeshi | 328 | – | 636 | 0.14% | 1,277 | 0.26% | 2,685 | 0.52% |
| Asian, Asian Scottish or Asian British: British Chinese | 1,940 | 0.46% | 3,532 | 0.78% | 8,076 | 1.69% | 15,076 | 2.93% |
| Asian, Asian Scottish or Asian British: British Asian | 910 | 0.21% | 1,201 | 0.26% | 4,583 | 0.96% | 6,441 | 1.25% |
| African: Black people, African Scottish or Black British | 603 | – | 1,285 | 0.2% | 4,364 | 0.91% | 809 | 0.16% |
| African: Black British | – | – | – | – | 110 | – | 8,653 | 1.68% |
| Caribbean | 175 | – | 292 | – | 505 | 0.1% | 477 | 0.1% |
| Black British | – | – | – | – | 403 | – | 80 | – |
| Caribbean or Black: Other Black | 393 | – | – | – | 123 | – | 862 | 0.17% |
| Other: British Arabs | – | – | – | – | 2,500 | 0.52% | 4,119 | 0.8% |
| Other: Any other ethnic group | 1,720 | 0.41% | 2,047 | 0.45% | 1,103 | 0.23% | 5,849 | 1.14% |
The proportion of people residing in Edinburgh born outside the UK was 23.5% in 2022, compared with 15.9% in 2011 and 8.3% in 2001. Below are the largest overseas-born groups in Edinburgh according to the 2022 census, alongside the two previous censuses.
| Poland | 13,842 | 11,651 | 416 |
| 9,445 | 4,888 | 1,733 | |
| 8,229 | 4,188 | 978 | |
| United States | 6,539 | 3,715 | 2,184 |
| Italy | 4,885 | 1,716 | 1,257 |
| Spain | 4,837 | 2,011 | 1,058 |
| Ireland | 4,774 | 4,743 | 3,324 |
| Germany | 3,843 | 3,526 | 2,760 |
| Hong Kong | 3,556 | 1,622 | 1,416 |
| 3,220 | 2,472 | 1,663 | |
| Nigeria | 2,978 | 1,186 | 231 |
| France | 2,973 | 2,039 | 1,412 |
| South Africa | 2,464 | 1,824 | 1,331 |
| Greece | 2,377 | 992 | 575 |
| Australia | 2,189 | 2,086 | 2,012 |
| Canada | 2,079 | 1,760 | 1,332 |
The construction of the New Town from 1767 onwards witnessed the migration of the professional and business classes from the difficult living conditions in the Old Town to the lower-density, higher quality surroundings taking shape on land to the north.
(2025). 9780748618682 ISBN 9780748618682 Expansion southwards from the Old Town saw more tenements being built in the 19th century, giving rise to Victorian era suburbs such as Dalry, Newington, Marchmont and Bruntsfield.
Early 20th-century population growth coincided with lower-density suburban development. As the city expanded to the south and west, detached and semi-detached villas with large gardens replaced tenements as the predominant building style. Nonetheless, the 2001 census revealed that over 55% of Edinburgh's population were still living in tenements or blocks of flats, a figure in line with other Scottish cities, but much higher than other British cities, and even central London.
From the early to mid 20th century, the growth in population, together with slum clearance in the Old Town and other areas, such as Dumbiedykes, Leith, and Fountainbridge, led to the creation of new estates such as Stenhouse and Saughton, Craigmillar and Niddrie, Pilton and Muirhouse, Piershill, and Sighthill.
Saint Giles is historically the patron saint of Edinburgh. St Cuthbert's, situated at the west end of Princes Street Gardens in the shadow of Edinburgh Castle and St Giles' can lay claim to being the oldest Christian sites in the city, though the present St Cuthbert's, designed by Hippolyte Blanc, was dedicated in 1894.
Other Church of Scotland churches include Greyfriars Kirk, the Canongate Kirk, and the Barclay Church. The Church of Scotland Offices are in Edinburgh, as is the Assembly Hall where the annual General Assembly is held.
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh has 27 parishes across the city. The Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh has his official residence in Greenhill, the diocesan offices are in nearby Marchmont, and its cathedral is St Mary's Cathedral, Edinburgh. The Diocese of Edinburgh of the Scottish Episcopal Church has over 50 churches, half of them in the city. Its centre is the late 19th-century Gothic style St Mary's Cathedral in the West End's Palmerston Place. Orthodox Christianity is represented by Pan, Romanian and Russian Orthodox churches, including St Andrew's Orthodox Church, part of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain. There are several independent churches in the city, both Catholic and Protestant, including Charlotte Chapel, Carrubbers Christian Centre, Bellevue Chapel and Sacred Heart. There are also churches belonging to Quakers, Christadelphians, Seventh-day Adventists, Church of Christ, Scientist, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) and Elim Pentecostal Church.
Muslims have several places of worship across the city. Edinburgh Central Mosque, the largest Islamic place of worship, is located in Potterrow on the city's Southside, near Bristo Square. Construction was largely financed by a gift from King Fahd of Saudi Arabia and was completed in 1998. There is also an Ahmadiyya Muslim community.
The first recorded presence of a Jewish community in Edinburgh dates back to the late 18th century. Edinburgh's Orthodox Judaism synagogue, opened in 1932, is in Salisbury Road and can accommodate a congregation of 2000. A Liberal Jewish congregation also meets in the city.
A Sikh gurdwara and a Hindu mandir are located in Leith. The city also has a Brahma Kumaris centre in the Polwarth area.
The Edinburgh Buddhist Centre, run by the Triratna Buddhist Community, formerly situated in Melville Terrace, now runs sessions at the Healthy Life Centre, Bread Street. Other Buddhist traditions are represented by groups which meet in the capital: the Community of Interbeing (followers of Thich Nhat Hanh), Rigpa, Samye Dzong, Theravadin, Pure Land and Shambala. There is a Sōtō Zen Priory in Portobello and a Theravadin Thai Buddhist Monastery in Slateford Road.
Edinburgh is home to a Baháʼí community, and a Theosophical Society meets in Great King Street.
Edinburgh has an Inter-Faith Association.
Edinburgh has over 39 graveyards and cemeteries, many of which are listed and of historical character, including several former church burial grounds. Examples include Old Calton Burial Ground, Greyfriars Kirkyard and Dean Cemetery.
As the centre of Scotland's government and Scots law, the public sector plays a central role in Edinburgh's economy. Many departments of the Scottish Government are in the city, including the headquarters of the government at St Andrew's House, the official residence of the First Minister at Bute House and Scottish Government offices at Victoria Quay. Other major sectors across the city include administrative and support services, the education sector, public administration and defence, the health and social care sector, scientific and technical services, and construction and manufacturing. When the £1.3bn Edinburgh & South East Scotland City Region Deal was signed in 2018, the region's Gross Value Added (GVA) contribution to the Scottish economy was cited as £33bn, or 33% of the country's output. The City Region Deal funds a range of "Data Driven Innovation" hubs which are using data to innovate in the region, recognising the region's strengths in technology and data science, the growing importance of the data economy, and the need to tackle the digital skills gap, as a route to social and economic prosperity.
Tourism is also an important element in the city's economy. As a World Heritage Site, tourists visit historical sites such as Edinburgh Castle, the Palace of Holyroodhouse, and the Old and New Towns. Their numbers are augmented in August each year during the Edinburgh Festivals, which attract over 4 million visitors, and generate over £400M for the local economy. In May 2024, unemployment in Edinburgh was at 3.5%, in line with the Scottish average of 3.7%. In 2022 Edinburgh was the second most visited city in the United Kingdom, behind London, by overseas visitors.
The longest established of these festivals is the Edinburgh International Festival, which was first held in 1947 and consists mainly of a programme of high-profile theatre productions and classical music performances, featuring international directors, conductors, theatre companies and orchestras.
This has since been overtaken in size by the Edinburgh Fringe, which began as a programme of marginal acts alongside the "official" Festival and has become the world's largest performing arts festival. In 2023, over 3700 different shows were staged in 300 venues across the city. Comedy has become one of the mainstays of the Fringe, with many comedians getting their first 'break' there, often by being chosen to receive the Edinburgh Comedy Award. The Edinburgh Military Tattoo occupies the Castle Esplanade every night for three weeks each August, with massed and drawn from around the world. Performances end with a short fireworks display.
As well as the summer festivals, many other festivals are held during the rest of the year, including the Edinburgh International Film Festival and Edinburgh International Science Festival.
The summer of 2020 was the first time in its 70-year history that the Edinburgh festival was not run, being cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This affected many of the tourist-focused businesses in Edinburgh which depend on the various festivals over summer to return an annual profit.
The Usher Hall is Edinburgh's premier venue for classical music, as well as occasional popular music concerts. It was the venue for the Eurovision Song Contest 1972. Other halls staging music and theatre include The Hub, the Assembly Rooms and the Queen's Hall. The Scottish Chamber Orchestra is based in Edinburgh.
Edinburgh has two repertory cinemas, The Cameo and the Edinburgh Filmhouse, as well as the independent Dominion Cinema and a range of multiplexes.
Large concerts are occasionally staged at Murrayfield Stadium and Meadowbank Stadium, while mid-sized events take place at smaller venues such as O2 Academy Edinburgh. In 2010, PRS for Music listed Edinburgh among the UK's top ten 'most musical' cities. Several city pubs are well known for their live performances of folk music.
Nightclub venues within the city host electronic dance music events.
The city has many commercial radio stations including Forth 1, a station which broadcasts mainstream chart music, Greatest Hits Edinburgh on DAB which plays classic hits and Edge Radio. Capital Scotland and Heart Scotland also have transmitters covering Edinburgh. Along with the UK national radio stations, BBC Radio Scotland and the Gaelic language service BBC Radio nan Gàidheal are also broadcast. DAB digital radio is broadcast over two local multiplexes. BFBS Radio broadcasts from studios on the base at Dreghorn Barracks across the city on 98.5FM as part of its UK Bases network. Small-scale DAB started in October 2022 with community stations on board.
Television, along with most radio services, is broadcast to the city from the Craigkelly transmitting station situated in Fife on the opposite side of the Firth of Forth and the Black Hill transmitting station in North Lanarkshire to the west.
There are no television stations based in the city. Edinburgh Television existed in the late 1990s to early 2003 and STV Edinburgh existed from 2015 to 2018.
Edinburgh Zoo, covering on Corstorphine Hill, is the second most visited paid tourist attraction in Scotland, and was previously home to two , Tian Tian and Yang Guang, on loan from the People's Republic of China. Edinburgh is also home to HMY Britannia, decommissioned in 1997 and now a five-star visitor attraction and evening events venue permanently berthed at Ocean Terminal.
Edinburgh contains Scotland's three National Galleries of Art as well as smaller art galleries. The national collection is housed in the Scottish National Gallery, located on The Mound, comprising the linked National Gallery of Scotland building and the Royal Scottish Academy building. Contemporary collections are shown in the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, which occupies a split site at Belford. The Scottish National Portrait Gallery on Queen Street focuses on portraits and photography.
The council-owned City Art Centre in Market Street mounts regular art exhibitions. Across the road, The Fruitmarket Gallery offers world-class exhibitions of contemporary art, featuring work by British and international artists with both emerging and established international reputations.
The city hosts several of Scotland's galleries and organisations dedicated to contemporary visual art. Significant strands of this infrastructure include Creative Scotland, Edinburgh College of Art, Talbot Rice Gallery (University of Edinburgh), Collective Gallery (based at the City Observatory) and the Edinburgh Annuale.
Many small private shops/galleries provide space to showcase works from local artists.
Edinburgh also has substantial retail parks outside the city centre. These include The Gyle Shopping Centre and Hermiston Gait in the west of the city, Cameron Toll Shopping Centre, Straiton Retail Park (actually just outside the city, in Midlothian) and Fort Kinnaird in the south and east, and Ocean Terminal in the north on the Leith waterfront.
After the 2017 election, the SNP and Labour formed a coalition administration, which lasted until the next election in 2022. The 2022 City of Edinburgh Council election resulted in the most politically balanced council in the UK, with 19 SNP, 13 Labour, 12 Liberal Democrat, 10 Green, and 9 Conservative councillors. A minority Labour administration was formed, being voted in by Scottish Conservative and Scottish Liberal Democrat councillors. The SNP and Greens presented a coalition agreement, but could not command a majority in the council. This caused controversy amongst the Scottish Labour Party group for forming an administration supported by Conservatives, and led to the suspension of two Labour councillors on the council for abstaining on the vote to approve the new administration. The city's coat of arms was registered by the Lord Lyon King of Arms in 1732.
As of the 2021 election, the Scottish National Party have four MSPs: Ash Denham for Edinburgh Eastern, Ben Macpherson for Edinburgh Northern and Leith and Gordon MacDonald for Edinburgh Pentlands and Angus Robertson for Edinburgh Central constituencies. Alex Cole-Hamilton, the Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats represents Edinburgh Western and Daniel Johnson of the Scottish Labour Party represents Edinburgh Southern constituency. In addition, the city is also represented by seven regional MSPs representing the Lothian electoral region: The Conservatives have three regional MSPs: Jeremy Balfour, Miles Briggs and Sue Webber, Labour have two regional MSPs: Sarah Boyack and Foysol Choudhury; two Scottish Green regional MSPs were elected: Green's Co-Leader Lorna Slater and Alison Johnstone. However, following her election as the Presiding Officer of the 6th Session of the Scottish Parliament on 13 May 2021, Alison Johnstone has abided by the established parliamentary convention for speakers and renounced all affiliation with her former political party for the duration of her term as Presiding Officer. So she presently sits as an independent MSP for the Lothians Region.
Edinburgh is also represented in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom by five Members of Parliament. The city is divided into Edinburgh North and Leith, Edinburgh East and Musselburgh, Edinburgh South, Edinburgh South West, and Edinburgh West, each constituency electing one member by the first past the post system. Since the 2024 UK General election, Edinburgh is represented by four Labour MPs (Tracy Gilbert in Edinburgh North and Leith, Chris Murray in Edinburgh East and Musselburgh, Ian Murray in Edinburgh South, and Scott Arthur in Edinburgh South West), and one Liberal Democrat MP in Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine).
Lothian Buses and McGill's Scotland East operate the city's branded public tour buses. The night bus service and airport buses are mainly operated by Lothian Buses link. In 2019, Lothian Buses recorded 124.2 million passenger journeys.
To tackle traffic congestion, Edinburgh is now served by six park & ride sites on the periphery of the city at Sheriffhall (in Midlothian), Ingliston, Riccarton, Inverkeithing (in Fife), Newcraighall and Straiton (in Midlothian). A referendum of Edinburgh residents in February 2005 rejected a proposal to introduce congestion charging in the city.
To the west of the city centre lies Haymarket station, which is an important commuter stop. Opened in 2003, Edinburgh Park station serves the Gyle business park in the west of the city and the nearby Gogarburn headquarters of the Royal Bank of Scotland. The Edinburgh Crossrail route connects Edinburgh Park with Haymarket, Edinburgh Waverley and the suburban stations of Brunstane and Newcraighall in the east of the city. There are also commuter lines to Edinburgh Gateway, South Gyle and Dalmeny, the latter serving South Queensferry by the Forth Bridges, and to Wester Hailes and Curriehill in the south-west of the city.
The line was later extended north onto Leith and Newhaven, opening a further eight stops to passengers in June 2023. The York Place stop was replaced by a new island stop at Picardy Place. The original plan would have seen a second line run from Haymarket through Ravelston and Craigleith to Granton Square on the Waterfront Edinburgh. This was shelved in 2011 but is now once again under consideration, as is another line potentially linking the south of the city and the Bioquarter. There were also long-term plans for lines running west from the airport to Ratho and Newbridge and another connecting Granton to Newhaven via Lower Granton Road. Lothian Buses and Edinburgh Trams are both owned and operated by Transport for Edinburgh.
Despite its modern transport links, in January 2021, Edinburgh was named the most congested city in the UK for the fourth year running, though it has since fallen to 7th place in 2022
Established by royal charter in 1583, the University of Edinburgh is one of Scotland's ancient universities and is the fourth oldest in the country after St Andrews, Glasgow and Aberdeen. Originally centred on Old College the university expanded to premises on The Mound, the Royal Mile and George Square. Today, the King's Buildings in the south of the city contain most of the schools within the College of Science and Engineering. In 2002, the medical school moved to purpose-built accommodation adjacent to the new Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh at Little France. The university is placed 16th in the QS World University Rankings for 2022.
Heriot-Watt University is based at the Riccarton campus in the west of Edinburgh. Originally established in 1821 as the world's first mechanics' institute, it was granted university status by royal charter in 1966. It has other campuses in the Scottish Borders, Orkney, the United Arab Emirates and Putrajaya in Malaysia. It takes the name Heriot-Watt from Scottish inventor James Watt and Scottish philanthropist and goldsmith George Heriot. Heriot-Watt University has been named International University of the Year by The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2018. In the latest Research Excellence Framework, it was ranked overall in the Top 25% of UK universities and 1st in Scotland for research impact.
Edinburgh Napier University was originally founded as Napier College, which was renamed Napier Polytechnic in 1986 and gained university status in 1992. Edinburgh Napier University has campuses in the south and west of the city, including the former Merchiston Tower and Craiglockhart Hydropathic. It is home to the Screen Academy Scotland.
Queen Margaret University was located in Edinburgh before it moved outside the city boundary to a new campus in the county of East Lothian on the outskirts of Musselburgh in 2008. Until 2012, further education colleges in the city included Jewel and Esk College (incorporating Leith Nautical College founded in 1903), Telford College, opened in 1968, and Stevenson College, opened in 1970. These have now been amalgamated to form Edinburgh College. Scotland's Rural College also has a campus in South Edinburgh. Other institutions include the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, which were established by royal charter in 1506 and 1681, respectively. The Trustees' Academy of Edinburgh, founded in 1760, became the Edinburgh College of Art in 1907.
There are two private hospitals: Murrayfield Hospital in the west of the city and Shawfair Hospital in the south; both are owned by Spire Healthcare.
Heart of Midlothian and Hibernian are known locally as "Hearts" and "Hibs", respectively. Both play in the Scottish Premiership. They are the oldest city rivals in Scotland and the Edinburgh derby is one of the oldest derby matches in world football. Both clubs have won the Scottish league championship four times. Hearts have won the Scottish Cup eight times and the Scottish League Cup four times. Hibs have won the Scottish Cup and the Scottish League Cup three times each. Edinburgh City were promoted to Scottish League Two in the 2015–16 season, becoming the first club to win promotion to the SPFL via the pyramid system playoffs.
Edinburgh was also home to four other former Scottish Football League clubs: the original Edinburgh City (founded in 1928), Leith Athletic, Meadowbank Thistle and St Bernard's. Meadowbank Thistle played at Meadowbank Stadium until 1995, when the club moved to Livingston and became Livingston F.C. The Scottish national team has very occasionally played at Easter Road and Tynecastle Park, although its normal home stadium is Hampden Park in Glasgow. St Bernard's New Logie Green was used to host the 1896 Scottish Cup Final, the only time the match has been played outside Glasgow.Paul Smith & Shirley Smith (2005) The Ultimate Directory of English & Scottish Football League Grounds Second Edition 1888–2005, Yore Publications, p202
The city also plays host to Lowland Football League clubs Civil Service Strollers, Edinburgh University and Spartans, as well as East of Scotland League clubs Craigroyston, Edinburgh United, Heriot-Watt University, Leith Athletic, Lothian Thistle Hutchison Vale, and Tynecastle.
The Edinburgh Academicals ground at Raeburn Place was the location of the world's first international rugby game on 27 March 1871, between Scotland and England.
Rugby league is represented by the Edinburgh Eagles who play in the Rugby League Conference Scotland Division. Murrayfield Stadium has hosted the Magic Weekend where all Super League matches are played in the stadium over one weekend.
The Edinburgh Capitals are the latest of a succession of ice hockey clubs in the Scottish capital. Previously, Edinburgh was represented by the Murrayfield Racers (2018), the original Murrayfield Racers (who folded in 1996), and the Edinburgh Racers. The club plays their home games at the Murrayfield Ice Rink and have competed in the eleven-team professional Scottish National League (SNL) since the 2018–19 season.
Next door to Murrayfield Ice Rink is a 7-sheeter dedicated curling facility where curling is played from October to March each season.
Caledonia Pride is the only women's professional basketball team in Scotland. Established in 2016, the team competes in the UK-wide Women's British Basketball League and plays their home matches at the Oriam National Performance Centre. Edinburgh also has several men's basketball teams within the Scottish National League. Boroughmuir Blaze, City of Edinburgh Kings, and Edinburgh Lions all compete in Division 1 of the National League, and Pleasance B.C. compete in Division 2.
The Edinburgh Diamond Devils is a baseball club that won its first Scottish Championship in 1991 as the "Reivers". 1992 saw the team repeat the achievement, becoming the first team to do so in league history. The same year saw the start of their first youth team, the Blue Jays. The club adopted its present name in 1999.
Edinburgh has also hosted national and international sports events including the World Student Games, the 1970 British Commonwealth Games, the 1986 Commonwealth Games and the inaugural 2000 Commonwealth Youth Games. For the 1970 Games the city built Olympic standard venues and facilities including Meadowbank Stadium and the Royal Commonwealth Pool. The Pool underwent refurbishment in 2012 and hosted the Diving competition in the 2014 Commonwealth Games, which were held in Glasgow.
In American football, the Scottish Claymores played WLAF/NFL Europe games at Murrayfield, including their World Bowl 96 victory. From 1995 to 1997, they played all their games there, from 1998 to 2000 they split their home matches between Murrayfield and Glasgow's Hampden Park, then moved to Glasgow full-time, with one final Murrayfield appearance in 2002. The city's most successful non-professional team are the Edinburgh Wolves who play at Meadowbank Stadium.
The Edinburgh Marathon has been held annually in the city since 2003 with more than 16,000 runners taking part on each occasion. Its organisers have called it "the fastest marathon in the UK" due to the elevation drop of . The city also organises a half-marathon, as well as 10 km () and 5 km () races, including a race on 1 January each year.
Edinburgh has a speedway team, the Edinburgh Monarchs, which, since the loss of its stadium in the city, has raced at the Lothian Arena in Armadale, West Lothian. The Monarchs have won the Premier League championship five times in their history, in 2003 and again in 2008, 2010, 2014 and 2015.
For basketball, the city has a basketball club, Edinburgh Tigers.
Edinburgh also has Scotland's first onshore artificial open air surfing pool, located at former Craigpark quarry in Ratho.
Edinburgh produced figures in science and engineering. John Napier, inventor of , was born in Merchiston Tower and lived and died in the city. His house now forms part of the original campus of Napier University which was named in his honour. He lies buried under St. Cuthbert's Church. James Clerk Maxwell, founder of the modern theory of electromagnetism, was born at 14 India Street (now the home of the James Clerk Maxwell Foundation) and educated at the Edinburgh Academy and the University of Edinburgh, as was the engineer and telephone pioneer Alexander Graham Bell. James Braidwood, who organised Britain's first municipal fire brigade, was also born in the city and began his career there.
Other names connected with the city include physicist Max Born, a principle founder of Quantum mechanics and Nobel laureate; Charles Darwin, the biologist who propounded the theory of natural selection; David Hume, philosopher, economist and historian; James Hutton, regarded as the "Father of Geology"; Joseph Black, the chemist who discovered magnesium and carbon dioxide, and one of the founders of Thermodynamics; pioneering medical researchers Joseph Lister and James Young Simpson; chemist and discoverer of the element nitrogen Daniel Rutherford; Colin Maclaurin, mathematician and developer of the Maclaurin series, and Ian Wilmut, the geneticist involved in the cloning of Dolly the sheep just outside Edinburgh, at the Roslin Institute. The stuffed carcass of Dolly the sheep is now on display in the National Museum of Scotland. The latest in a long line of science celebrities associated with the city is theoretical physicist, Nobel laureate and professor emeritus at the University of Edinburgh Peter Higgs, born in Newcastle but resident in Edinburgh for most of his academic career, after whom the Higgs boson particle has been named.
Edinburgh has been the birthplace of actors like Alastair Sim and Sir Sean Connery, the first cinematic James Bond, the comedian and actor Ronnie Corbett, one of The Two Ronnies, and the impressionist Rory Bremner. Artists from the city include the portrait painters Sir Henry Raeburn, Sir David Wilkie, and Allan Ramsay. The city has produced or been home to musicians Ian Anderson, front man of the band Jethro Tull, The Incredible String Band, the folk duo The Corries, Wattie Buchan, lead singer and founding member of punk band The Exploited, Shirley Manson, lead singer of the band Garbage, the Bay City Rollers, The Proclaimers, Swim School, Boards of Canada and Idlewild. Edinburgh is the birthplace of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair who attended the city's Fettes College.
Criminals from Edinburgh's past include Deacon Brodie, head of a trades guild and Edinburgh city councillor by day but a burglar by night, who is said to have been the inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson's story, the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and murderers Burke and Hare who delivered fresh corpses for dissection to the famous anatomist Robert Knox.
Another Edinburgh resident was Greyfriars Bobby. The small Skye Terrier reputedly kept vigil over his dead master's grave in Greyfriars Kirkyard for 14 years in the 1860s and 1870s, giving rise to a story of canine devotion which plays a part in attracting visitors to the city.
In June 2024, the City of Edinburgh Council shelved plans for a friendship arrangement with Kaohsiung, Taiwan, after a report raised concerns that the agreement could heighten cyber attacks. A few weeks before the decision, the Chinese Consul General met with Scottish government minister Angus Robertson to protest against the potential agreement. In a letter to the city council, the Chinese representative said signing a sister city agreement "will hurt the feeling of the Chinese people and bring about serious consequences to … bilateral relations".
For a list of consulates in Edinburgh, see List of diplomatic missions in Scotland.
Sport
Football
Men's
Edinburgh has four football clubs that play in the Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL): Heart of Midlothian, founded in 1874, Hibernian, founded in 1875, Edinburgh City F.C., founded in 1966 and Spartans, founded in 1951.
Women's
In women's football, Hearts, Hibs and Spartans play in the SWPL 1. Hutchison Vale and Boroughmuir Thistle play in the SWPL 2.
Rugby
The Scotland national rugby union team play at Murrayfield Stadium, and the professional Edinburgh Rugby team play at the nextdoor Edinburgh Rugby Stadium; both are owned by the Scottish Rugby Union and are also used for other events, including music concerts. Murrayfield is the largest capacity stadium in Scotland, seating 67,144 spectators. Edinburgh is also home to Scottish Premiership teams Boroughmuir RFC, Currie RFC, the Edinburgh Academicals, Heriot's Rugby Club and Watsonians RFC.
Other sports
The Scottish cricket team, which represents Scotland internationally, plays its home matches at the Grange cricket club.
People
Edinburgh has a literary tradition, which became especially evident during the Scottish Enlightenment. This heritage and the city's literary life in the present led to it being declared the first UNESCO City of Literature in 2004. Authors who have lived in Edinburgh include the economist Adam Smith, born in Kirkcaldy and author of The Wealth of Nations, James Boswell, biographer of Samuel Johnson; Sir Walter Scott, creator of the historical novel and author of works such as Rob Roy, Ivanhoe, and Heart of Midlothian; James Hogg, author of The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner; Robert Louis Stevenson, creator of Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes; Muriel Spark, author of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie; Irvine Welsh, author of Trainspotting, whose novels are mostly set in the city and often written in colloquial Scots language;
Ian Rankin, author of the Inspector Rebus series of crime thrillers, Alexander McCall Smith, author of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, and J. K. Rowling, author of Harry Potter, who moved to the city in 1993 and wrote much of her first book in Edinburgh coffee shops.
International relations
Twin towns and sister cities
The City of Edinburgh has entered into 14 international town twinning arrangements since 1954. Most of the arrangements are styled as Twin Cities but the agreement with Kraków is designated as a Partner City, and the agreement with Kyoto Prefecture is officially styled as a Friendship Link, reflecting its status as the only region to be twinned with Edinburgh.
1954 1958 1964 1974 1977 1977 1985 1985 1989 1991 1994 1994 1995 1995 2019
See also
Notes
Further reading
External links
Categories: Capital Cities In The United Kingdom, Council Areas Of Scotland, Cities In Scotland, Districts Of Scotland, Feudalism In Scotland, Lieutenancy Areas Of Scotland, Port Cities And Towns In Scotland, Port Cities And Towns Of The North Sea, Populated Places Established In The 7th Century, 7th-century Establishments In Europe, Towns In Edinburgh Council Area
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