Edinburgh

"Edin", the root of the city's name, derives from Eidyn, the name for this region in Cumbric, the Brittonic Celtic language formerly spoken there. The name's meaning is unknown.^[16] The district of Eidyn is centred on the stronghold Din Eidyn, the dun or hillfort of Eidyn.^[16] This stronghold is believed to have been located at Castle Rock, now the site of Edinburgh Castle. Eidyn was conquered by the Angles of Bernicia in the 7th century and later occupied by the Scots in the 10th century.^[17] As the language shifted to Northumbrian Old English, which evolved into Scots, the Brittonic din in Din Eidyn was replaced by burh, producing Edinburgh. Similarly, din became dùn in Scottish Gaelic, producing Dùn Èideann.^[16][18]

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Etymology of Edinburgh

Etymology of Edinburgh

The name Edinburgh is used in both English and Scots for the capital of Scotland; in Scottish Gaelic, the city is known as Dùn Èideann. Both names are derived from an older name for the surrounding region, Eidyn. It is generally accepted that this name in turn derives ultimately from the Celtic Common Brittonic language.

Eidyn

Eidyn

Eidyn was the region around modern Edinburgh in Britain's sub-Roman and early medieval periods, approximately the 5th–7th centuries. It centred on the stronghold of Din Eidyn, thought to have been at Castle Rock, now the site of Edinburgh Castle, and apparently included much of the area below the Firth of Forth. It was the most important district of the Brittonic kingdom of Gododdin, and a significant power in the Hen Ogledd, or Old North, the Brittonic-speaking area of what is now southern Scotland and northern England.

Cumbric

Cumbric

Cumbric was a variety of the Common Brittonic language spoken during the Early Middle Ages in the Hen Ogledd or "Old North" in what is now the counties of Westmorland, Cumberland, northern Lancashire in Northern England and the southern Scottish Lowlands, alongside the Kingdom of Elmet in modern day Yorkshire. It was closely related to Old Welsh and the other Brittonic languages. Place name evidence suggests Cumbric may also have been spoken as far south as Pendle and the Yorkshire Dales. The prevailing view is that it became extinct in the 12th century, after the incorporation of the semi-independent Kingdom of Strathclyde into the Kingdom of Scotland.

Brittonic languages

Brittonic languages

The Brittonic languages form one of the two branches of the Insular Celtic language family; the other is Goidelic. It comprises the extant languages Breton, Cornish, and Welsh. The name Brythonic was derived by Welsh Celticist John Rhys from the Welsh word Brython, meaning Ancient Britons as opposed to an Anglo-Saxon or Gael.

Celtic languages

Celtic languages

The Celtic languages are a group of related languages descended from Proto-Celtic. They form a branch of the Indo-European language family. The term "Celtic" was first used to describe this language group by Edward Lhuyd in 1707, following Paul-Yves Pezron, who made the explicit link between the Celts described by classical writers and the Welsh and Breton languages.

Dun

Dun

A dun is an ancient or medieval fort. In Ireland and Britain it is mainly a kind of hillfort and also a kind of Atlantic roundhouse.

Hillfort

Hillfort

A hillfort is a type of earthwork used as a fortified refuge or defended settlement, located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typically European and of the Bronze Age or Iron Age. Some were used in the post-Roman period. The fortification usually follows the contours of a hill and consists of one or more lines of earthworks, with stockades or defensive walls, and external ditches.

Edinburgh Castle

Edinburgh Castle

Edinburgh Castle is a historic castle in Edinburgh, Scotland. It stands on Castle Rock, which has been occupied by humans since at least the Iron Age, although the nature of the early settlement is unclear. There has been a royal castle on the rock since at least the reign of David I in the 12th century, and the site continued to be a royal residence until 1633. From the 15th century, the castle's residential role declined, and by the 17th century it was principally used as military barracks with a large garrison. Its importance as a part of Scotland's national heritage was recognised increasingly from the early 19th century onwards, and various restoration programmes have been carried out over the past century and a half.

Angles

Angles

The Angles were one of the main Germanic peoples who settled in Great Britain in the post-Roman period. They founded several kingdoms of the Heptarchy in Anglo-Saxon England. Their name is the root of the name England. According to Tacitus, writing around 100 AD, a people known as Angles (Anglii) lived east of the Lombards and Semnones, who lived near the Elbe river.

Bernicia

Bernicia

Bernicia was originally the Brittonic Celtic kingdom of Bryneich from the late 4th century and later the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of 'Bernicia' established by Anglian conquerors of the late 6th century in what is now southeastern Scotland and North East England.

Northumbrian Old English

Northumbrian Old English

Northumbrian was a dialect of Old English spoken in the Anglian Kingdom of Northumbria. Together with Mercian, Kentish and West Saxon, it forms one of the sub-categories of Old English devised and employed by modern scholars.

Burh

Burh

A burh or burg was an Anglo-Saxon fortification or fortified settlement. In the 9th century, raids and invasions by Vikings prompted Alfred the Great to develop a network of burhs and roads to use against such attackers. Some were new constructions; others were situated at the site of Iron Age hillforts or Roman forts and employed materials from the original fortifications. As at Lundenburh, many were also situated on rivers: this facilitated internal lines of supply while aiming to restrict access to the interior of the kingdom for attackers in shallow-draught vessels such as longships.

Surgeons' Hall, one of the Greek Revival buildings that earned Edinburgh the nickname "Athens of the North"

The city is affectionately nicknamed Auld Reekie,^[19][20] Scots for Old Smoky, for the views from the country of the smoke-covered Old Town. A remark on a poem in an 1800 collection of the poems of Allan Ramsay said, "Auld Reeky. A name the country people give Edinburgh from the cloud of smoke or reek that is always impending over it."^[21]

Thomas Carlyle said, "Smoke cloud hangs over old Edinburgh,—for, ever since Aeneas Silvius's time and earlier, the people have the art, very strange to Aeneas, of burning a certain sort of black stones, and Edinburgh with its chimneys is called 'Auld Reekie' by the country people."^[22]

A character in Walter Scott's The Abbot says, "... yonder stands Auld Reekie—you may see the smoke hover over her at twenty miles' distance."^[23]

Robert Chambers, who said that the sobriquet could not be traced before the reign of Charles II, attributed the name to a Fife laird, Durham of Largo, who regulated the bedtime of his children by the smoke rising above Edinburgh from the fires of the tenements. "It's time now bairns, to tak' the beuks, and gang to our beds, for yonder's Auld Reekie, I see, putting on her nicht -cap!"^[24]

Edinburgh has been popularly called the Athens of the North since the early 19th century.^[25] 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 tourists of the Athenian Acropolis, as did aspects of the neoclassical architecture and layout of New Town.^[25] Both cities had flatter, fertile agricultural land sloping down to a port several miles away (respectively, Leith and Piraeus). Intellectually, the Scottish Enlightenment, with its humanist and rationalist outlook, was influenced by Ancient Greek philosophy.^[26] In 1822, artist Hugh William Williams organized 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.^[27] 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.^[28] 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.^[29]

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.^[30][31]

Edina is a late 18th-century poetical form used by the Scots poets Robert Fergusson and Robert Burns. "Embra" or "Embro" are colloquialisms from the same time,^[32] as in Robert Garioch's Embro to the Ploy.^[33]

Ben Jonson described it as "Britaine's other eye",^[34] and Sir Walter Scott referred to it as "yon Empress of the North".^[35] Robert Louis Stevenson, also a son of the city, wrote that Edinburgh "is what Paris ought to be."^[36]

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Greek Revival architecture

Greek Revival architecture

The Greek Revival was an architectural movement which began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe and the United States and Canada and in Greece itself following its independence in 1832. It revived many aspects of the forms and styles of ancient Greek architecture, in particular the Greek temple. A product of Hellenism, Greek Revival architecture is looked upon as the last phase in the development of Neoclassical architecture, which was drawn from Roman architecture. The term was first used by Charles Robert Cockerell in a lecture he gave as an architercture professor at the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 1842.

Allan Ramsay (poet)

Allan Ramsay (poet)

Allan Ramsay was a Scottish poet, playwright, publisher, librarian, and impresario of early Enlightenment Edinburgh.

Pope Pius II

Pope Pius II

Pope Pius II, born Enea Silvio Bartolomeo Piccolomini, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 19 August 1458 to his death in August 1464. He was born at Corsignano in the Sienese territory of a noble but impoverished family.

Charles II of England

Charles II of England

Charles II was King of Scotland from 1649 until 1651, and King of England, Scotland and Ireland from the 1660 Restoration of the monarchy until his death in 1685.

Fife

Fife

Fife is a council area, historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries with Perth and Kinross and Clackmannanshire. By custom it is widely held to have been one of the major Pictish kingdoms, known as Fib, and is still commonly known as the Kingdom of Fife within Scotland. A person from Fife is known as a Fifer. In older documents the county was very occasionally known by the anglicisation Fifeshire.

Grand Tour

Grand Tour

The Grand Tour was the principally 17th- to early 19th-century custom of a traditional trip through Europe, with Italy as a key destination, undertaken by upper-class young European men of sufficient means and rank when they had come of age.

Athens

Athens

Athens is a major coastal urban area in the Mediterranean and is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With its surrounding urban area’s population numbering over three million, it is also the seventh largest urban area in the European Union. Athens dominates and is the capital of the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, with its recorded history spanning over 3,400 years and its earliest human presence beginning somewhere between the 11th and 7th millennia BCE.

Neoclassical architecture

Neoclassical architecture

Neoclassical architecture is an architectural style produced by the Neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century in Italy and France. It became one of the most prominent architectural styles in the Western world. The prevailing styles of architecture in most of Europe for the previous two centuries, Renaissance architecture and Baroque architecture, already represented partial revivals of the Classical architecture of ancient Rome and ancient Greek architecture, but the Neoclassical movement aimed to strip away the excesses of Late Baroque and return to a purer and more authentic classical style, adapted to modern purposes.

New Town, Edinburgh

New Town, Edinburgh

The New Town is a central area of Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. It was built in stages between 1767 and around 1850, and retains much of its original neo-classical and Georgian period architecture. Its best known street is Princes Street, facing Edinburgh Castle and the Old Town across the geological depression of the former Nor Loch. Together with the West End, the New Town was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site alongside the Old Town in 1995. The area is also famed for the New Town Gardens, a heritage designation since March 2001.

Leith

Leith

Leith is a port area in the north of the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, founded at the mouth of the Water of Leith.

Piraeus

Piraeus

Piraeus is a port city within the Athens urban area, in the Attica region of Greece. It is located eight kilometres (5 mi) southwest of Athens' city centre, along the east coast of the Saronic Gulf.

Humanism

Humanism

Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential, and agency of human beings, whom it considers the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry.

Early history

Edinburgh, showing Arthur's Seat, one of the earliest known sites of human habitation in the area

The earliest known human habitation in the Edinburgh area was at Cramond, where evidence was found of a Mesolithic camp site dated to c. 8500 BC.^[37] Traces of later Bronze Age and Iron Age settlements have been found on Castle Rock, Arthur's Seat, Craiglockhart Hill and the Pentland Hills.^[38]

When the Romans arrived in Lothian at the end of the 1st century AD, they found a Brittonic Celtic tribe whose name they recorded as the Votadini.^[39] 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.^[40] The medieval 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.^[41][42][43]

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,^[44] was abandoned to the Scots. It thenceforth remained, for the most part, under their jurisdiction.^[45]

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.^[46] The first documentary evidence of the medieval burgh is a royal charter, c. 1124–1127, by King David I granting a toft in burgo meo de Edenesburg to the Priory of Dunfermline.^[47] The shire of Edinburgh seems to have also been created in the reign of David I, possibly covering all of Lothian at first, but by 1305 the eastern and western parts of Lothian had become Haddingtonshire and Linlithgowshire, 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).^[48][49]

Edinburgh was largely in English hands from 1291 to 1314 and from 1333 to 1341, during the Wars of Scottish Independence. When the English invaded Scotland in 1298, King Edward I chose not to enter the English controlled town of Edinburgh but passed by with his army.^[50]

In the middle of the 14th century, the French chronicler Jean Froissart described it as the capital of Scotland (c. 1365), and James III (1451–88) referred to it in the 15th century as "the principal burgh of our kingdom".^[51] In 1482 James III granted the burgh the right to appoint its own sheriff and coroner, making the burgh administratively independent from the surrounding county, with it becoming a county of itself.^[52][53] Despite the destruction caused by an English assault in 1544, the town slowly recovered,^[54] and was at the centre of events in the 16th-century Scottish Reformation^[55] and 17th-century Wars of the Covenant.^[56] In 1582, Edinburgh's town council was given a royal charter by King James VI permitting the establishment of a university;^[57] 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.^[58]

17th century

Edinburgh in the 17th century

Edinburgh, around 1690.

In 1603, King James VI of Scotland succeeded to the English throne, uniting the crowns of Scotland and England in a personal union known as the Union of the Crowns, though Scotland remained, in all other respects, a separate kingdom.^[59] In 1638, King Charles I's attempt to introduce Anglican church forms in Scotland encountered stiff Presbyterian opposition culminating in the conflicts of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms.^[60] Subsequent Scottish support for Charles Stuart's restoration to the throne of England resulted in Edinburgh's occupation by Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth of England forces – the New Model Army – in 1650.^[61]

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,^[62] and have been described as forerunners of the modern-day skyscraper.^[63][64] Most of these old structures were replaced by the predominantly Victorian 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.^[65]

18th century

A painting showing Edinburgh characters (based on John Kay's caricatures) behind St Giles' Cathedral in the late 18th century

Following the Treaty of Union in 1706, the Parliaments of England and Scotland passed Acts of Union in 1706 and 1707 respectively, uniting the two kingdoms in the Kingdom of Great Britain effective from 1 May 1707.^[66] As a consequence, the Parliament of Scotland merged with the Parliament of England to form the Parliament of Great Britain, which sat at Westminster in London. The Union was opposed by many Scots, resulting in riots in the city.^[67]

By the first half of the 18th century, Edinburgh was described as one of Europe's most densely populated, overcrowded and unsanitary towns.^[68][69] 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.^[70]

During the Jacobite rising of 1745, Edinburgh was briefly occupied by the Jacobite "Highland Army" before its march into England.^[71] After its eventual defeat at Culloden, there followed a period of reprisals and pacification, largely directed at the rebellious clans.^[72] In Edinburgh, the Town Council, keen to emulate London by initiating city improvements and expansion to the north of the castle,^[73] 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, 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).^[74]

In the second half of the century, the city was at the heart of the Scottish Enlightenment,^[75] 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.^[76] In the 18th-century novel The Expedition of Humphry Clinker by Tobias Smollett one character describes Edinburgh as a "hotbed of genius".^[77] Edinburgh was also a major centre for the Scottish book trade. The highly successful London bookseller Andrew Millar was apprenticed there to James McEuen.^[78]

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."^[79]

19th and 20th centuries

Edinburgh Castle from the Grassmarket, photographed by George Washington Wilson circa 1875

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Edinburgh (1914) by Robert Louis Stevenson

Edinburgh, c. 1920

Despite an enduring myth to the contrary,^[80] Edinburgh became an industrial centre^[81] with its traditional industries of printing, brewing and distilling continuing to grow in the 19th century and joined by new industries such as rubber works, engineering works and others. By 1821, Edinburgh had been overtaken by Glasgow as Scotland's largest city.^[82] The city centre between Princes Street and George Street became a major commercial and shopping district, a development partly stimulated by the arrival of railways in the 1840s. The Old Town became an increasingly dilapidated, overcrowded slum with high mortality rates.^[83] Improvements carried out under Lord Provost William Chambers in the 1860s began the transformation of the area into the predominantly Victorian Old Town seen today.^[84] More improvements followed in the early 20th century as a result of the work of Patrick Geddes,^[85] but relative economic stagnation during the two world wars and beyond saw the Old Town deteriorate further before major slum clearance in the 1960s and 1970s began to reverse the process. University building developments which transformed the George Square and Potterrow areas proved highly controversial.^[86]

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.^[87][88] Financial services now account for a third of all commercial office space in the city.^[89] The development of Edinburgh Park, a new business and technology park covering 38 acres (15 ha), 4 mi (6 km) west of the city centre, has also contributed to the District Council's strategy for the city's major economic regeneration.^[89]

In 1998, the Scotland Act, which came into force the following year, established a devolved Scottish Parliament and Scottish Executive (renamed the Scottish Government since September 2007^[90]). 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.^[91]

21st century

In 2022, Edinburgh was affected by the 2022 Scotland bin strikes.^[92] In 2023, Edinburgh became the first capital city in Europe to sign the global Plant Based Treaty, which was introduced at COP26 in 2021 in Glasgow.^[93] Green Party councillor Steve Burgess introduced the treaty. The Scottish Countryside Alliance and other farming groups called the treaty "anti-farming."^[94]

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History of Edinburgh

History of Edinburgh

While the area around modern-day Edinburgh has been inhabited for thousands of years, the history of Edinburgh as a definite settlement can be traced to the early Middle Ages when a hillfort was established in the area, most likely on the Castle Rock. From the seventh to the tenth centuries it was part of the Anglian Kingdom of Northumbria, becoming thereafter a royal residence of the Scottish kings. The town that developed next to the stronghold was established by royal charter in the early 12th century, and by the middle of the 14th century was being described as the capital of Scotland. The area known as the New Town was added from the second half of the 18th century onwards. Edinburgh was Scotland's largest city until Glasgow outgrew it in the first two decades of the 19th century. Following Scottish devolution in the very late 20th century, Scotland's Parliament was established in Edinburgh.

Cramond

Cramond

Cramond Village is a village and suburb in the north-west of Edinburgh, Scotland, at the mouth of the River Almond where it enters the Firth of Forth.

Bronze Age

Bronze Age

The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second principal period of the three-age system proposed in 1836 by Christian Jürgensen Thomsen for classifying and studying ancient societies and history.

Iron Age

Iron Age

The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age and the Bronze Age. The concept has been mostly applied to Iron Age Europe and the Ancient Near East, but also, by analogy, to other parts of the Old World.

Arthur's Seat

Arthur's Seat

Arthur's Seat is an ancient volcano which is the main peak of the group of hills in Edinburgh, Scotland, which form most of Holyrood Park, described by Robert Louis Stevenson as "a hill for magnitude, a mountain in virtue of its bold design". It is situated just to the east of the city centre, about 1 mile (1.6 km) to the east of Edinburgh Castle. The hill rises above the city to a height of 250.5 m (822 ft), provides excellent panoramic views of the city and beyond, is relatively easy to climb, and is popular for hillwalking. Though it can be climbed from almost any direction, the easiest and simplest ascent is from the east, where a grassy slope rises above Dunsapie Loch. At a spur of the hill, Salisbury Crags has historically been a rock climbing venue with routes of various degrees of difficulty. Until recently rock climbing was restricted to the South Quarry, but access is currently banned altogether by Historic Environment Scotland.

Craiglockhart Hill

Craiglockhart Hill

Craiglockhart Hill is a combination of two summits, Easter and Wester Craiglockhart, in the suburb of Craiglockhart, Edinburgh.

Celtic Britons

Celtic Britons

The Britons, also known as Celtic Britons or Ancient Britons, were the people of Celtic language and culture who inhabited Great Britain from at least the British Iron Age until the High Middle Ages, at which point they diverged into the Welsh, Cornish and Bretons. They spoke Common Brittonic, the ancestor of the modern Brittonic languages.

Gododdin

Gododdin

The Gododdin were a Brittonic people of north-eastern Britannia, the area known as the Hen Ogledd or Old North, in the sub-Roman period. Descendants of the Votadini, they are best known as the subject of the 6th-century Welsh poem Y Gododdin, which memorialises the Battle of Catraeth and is attributed to Aneirin.

Early Middle Ages

Early Middle Ages

The Early Middle Ages, sometimes controversially referred to as the Dark Ages, is typically regarded by historians as lasting from the late 5th or early 6th century through the 10th century. They marked the start of the Middle Ages of European history, following the decline of the Western Roman Empire, and preceding the High Middle Ages. The alternative term late antiquity, for the early part of the period, emphasizes elements of continuity with the Roman Empire, while Early Middle Ages is used to emphasize developments characteristic of the earlier medieval period.

Angles

Angles

The Angles were one of the main Germanic peoples who settled in Great Britain in the post-Roman period. They founded several kingdoms of the Heptarchy in Anglo-Saxon England. Their name is the root of the name England. According to Tacitus, writing around 100 AD, a people known as Angles (Anglii) lived east of the Lombards and Semnones, who lived near the Elbe river.

Indulf

Indulf

Ildulb mac Causantín, anglicised as Indulf or Indulph, nicknamed An Ionsaighthigh, "the Aggressor" was king of Alba from 954 to 962. He was the son of Constantine II; his mother may have been a daughter of Earl Eadulf I of Bernicia, who was an exile in Scotland.

Constantine II of Scotland

Constantine II of Scotland

Causantín mac Áeda was an early King of Scotland, known then by the Gaelic name Alba. The Kingdom of Alba, a name which first appears in Constantine's lifetime, was situated in modern-day Scotland.

Cityscape

Situated in Scotland's Central Belt, Edinburgh lies on the southern shore of the Firth of Forth. The city centre is 2+1⁄2 mi (4.0 km) southwest of the shoreline of Leith and 26 mi (42 km) inland, as the crow flies, from the east coast of Scotland and the North Sea at Dunbar.^[95] While the early burgh grew up near the prominent Castle Rock, the modern city is often said to be built on seven hills, namely Calton Hill, Corstorphine Hill, Craiglockhart Hill, Braid Hill, Blackford Hill, Arthur's Seat and the Castle Rock,^[96] giving rise to allusions to the seven hills of Rome.^[97]

Occupying a narrow gap between the Firth of Forth to the north and the Pentland Hills and their outrunners to the south, the city sprawls over a landscape which is the product of early volcanic activity and later periods of intensive glaciation. ^{[98]: 64–65} Igneous activity between 350 and 400 million years ago, coupled with faulting, led to the creation of tough basalt volcanic plugs, which predominate over much of the area.^{[98]: 64–65} One such example is the Castle Rock which forced the advancing ice sheet to divide, sheltering the softer rock and forming a 1 mi-long (1.6 km) tail of material to the east, thus creating a distinctive crag and tail formation.^{[98]: 64–65} Glacial erosion on the north side of the crag gouged a deep valley later filled by the now drained Nor Loch. These features, along with another hollow on the rock's south side, formed an ideal natural strongpoint upon which Edinburgh Castle was built.^{[98]: 64–65} Similarly, Arthur's Seat is the remains of a volcano dating from the Carboniferous period, which was eroded by a glacier moving west to east during the ice age.^{[98]: 64–65} Erosive action such as plucking and abrasion exposed the rocky crags to the west before leaving a tail of deposited glacial material swept to the east.^[99] This process formed the distinctive Salisbury Crags, a series of teschenite cliffs between Arthur's Seat and the location of the early burgh.^[100] The residential areas of Marchmont and Bruntsfield are built along a series of drumlin ridges south of the city centre, which were deposited as the glacier receded.^{[98]: 64–65}

Other prominent landforms such as Calton Hill and Corstorphine Hill are also products of glacial erosion.^{[98]: 64–65} 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.^{[98]: 64–65}

View of Edinburgh from Blackford Hill

Edinburgh is drained by the river named the Water of Leith, which rises at the Colzium Springs in the Pentland Hills and runs for 18 miles (29 km) through the south and west of the city, emptying into the Firth of Forth at Leith.^[101] 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 19.6 km (12.2 mi) from Balerno to Leith.^[102]

Panorama of Edinburgh from Edinburgh Castle, with the New Town in the centre and Calton Hill to the right

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.^[103] With an average width of 3.2 km (2 mi) the principal objectives of the green belt were to contain the outward expansion of the city and to prevent the agglomeration of urban areas.^[103] 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.^[103] Similarly, suburbs such as Juniper Green and Balerno are situated on green belt land.^[103] 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.^[103]

Edinburgh Old Town skyline panorama

Areas

Edinburgh includes former towns and villages that retain much of their original character as settlements in existence before they were absorbed into the expanding city of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.^[104] Many areas, such as Dalry, contain residences that are multi-occupancy buildings known as tenements, although the more southern and western parts of the city have traditionally been less built-up with a greater number of detached and semi-detached villas.^[105]

Map showing the areas of central Edinburgh

The historic centre of Edinburgh is divided in 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.

Edinburgh's Old and New Towns were listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995 in recognition of the unique character of the Old Town with its medieval street layout and the planned Georgian New Town, including the adjoining Dean Village and Calton Hill areas. There are over 4,500 listed buildings within the city,^[15] a higher proportion relative to area than any other city in the United Kingdom.

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 wynds) lie on either side of the main spine forming a herringbone pattern.^[106] 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.^[107] Numerous 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.^[108] 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.^[109] Bute House, the official residence of the First Minister of Scotland, is on the north side of Charlotte Square.^[110]

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,^[74] but this idea was abandoned.^[111] 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 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 Southside is a residential part of the city, which includes the districts of St Leonards, Marchmont, Morningside, Newington, Sciennes, the Grange and Blackford. The Southside is broadly analogous to the area covered formerly by the Burgh Muir, and was developed as a residential area after the opening of the South Bridge in the 1780s. The Southside is particularly popular with families (many state and private schools are here), young professionals and students (the central University of Edinburgh campus is based around George Square just north of Marchmont and the Meadows), and Napier University (with major campuses around Merchiston and Morningside). The area is also well provided with hotel and "bed and breakfast" accommodation for visiting festival-goers. These districts often feature in works of fiction. For example, Church Hill in Morningside, was the home of Muriel Spark's Miss Jean Brodie,^[112] and Ian Rankin's Inspector Rebus lives in Marchmont and works in St Leonards.^[113]

The Shore, Leith

Leith was historically the port of Edinburgh, an arrangement of unknown date that was confirmed by the royal charter Robert the Bruce granted to the city in 1329.^[114] The port developed a separate identity from Edinburgh, which to some extent it still retains, and it was a matter of great resentment when the two burghs merged in 1920 into the City of Edinburgh.^[115] Even today the parliamentary seat is known as "Edinburgh North and Leith". The loss of traditional industries and commerce (the last shipyard closed in 1983) resulted in economic decline.^[116] The Edinburgh Waterfront development has transformed old dockland areas from Leith to Granton into residential areas with shopping and leisure facilities and helped rejuvenate the area. With the redevelopment, Edinburgh has gained the business of cruise liner companies which now provide cruises to Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands.

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 and a restored Victorian swimming pool, including Turkish baths.

The urban area of Edinburgh is almost entirely within the City of Edinburgh Council boundary, merging with Musselburgh in East Lothian. Towns within easy reach of the city boundary include Haddington, Tranent, Prestonpans, Dalkeith, Bonnyrigg, Loanhead, Penicuik, Broxburn, Livingston and Dunfermline. Edinburgh lies at the heart of the Edinburgh & South East Scotland City region with a population in 2014 of 1,339,380.^[117][12]

Climate

Like most of Scotland, Edinburgh has a cool, temperate, maritime climate which, despite its northerly latitude, is milder than places which lie at similar latitudes such as Moscow and Labrador.^[118] The city's proximity to the sea mitigates any large variations in temperature or extremes of climate. Winter daytime temperatures rarely fall below freezing while summer temperatures are moderate, rarely exceeding 22 °C (72 °F).^[118] The highest temperature recorded in the city was 31.6 °C (88.9 °F) on 25 July 2019^[118] at Gogarbank, beating the previous record of 31 °C (88 °F) on 4 August 1975 at Edinburgh Airport.^[119] The lowest temperature recorded in recent years was −14.6 °C (5.7 °F) during December 2010 at Gogarbank.^[120]

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.^[118] Rainfall is distributed fairly evenly throughout the year.^[118] 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 May.^[118]

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.^[121] 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.^[122]

Discover more about Geography related topics

Central Belt

Central Belt

The Central Belt of Scotland is the area of highest population density within Scotland. Depending on the definition used, it has a population of between 2.4 and 4.2 million, including Greater Glasgow, Ayrshire, Falkirk, Edinburgh, Lothian and Fife.

Leith

Leith

Leith is a port area in the north of the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, founded at the mouth of the Water of Leith.

Dunbar

Dunbar

Dunbar is a town on the North Sea coast in East Lothian in the south-east of Scotland, approximately 30 miles east of Edinburgh and 30 mi (50 km) from the English border north of Berwick-upon-Tweed.

Hills in Edinburgh

Hills in Edinburgh

Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, is traditionally said to have been "built on Seven Hills", in an allusion to the seven hills of Rome. While there is considerable room for debate as to which hills are included and excluded from the seven, seven possibilities are listed in an old rhyme:Abbey, Calton, Castle grand, Southward see St Leonards stand, St Johns and Sciennes as two are given, And Multrees makes Seven.

Calton Hill

Calton Hill

Calton Hill is a hill in central Edinburgh, Scotland, situated beyond the east end of Princes Street and included in the city's UNESCO World Heritage Site. Views of, and from, the hill are often used in photographs and paintings of the city.

Corstorphine Hill

Corstorphine Hill

Corstorphine Hill is a low ridge-shaped hill rising above the western suburbs of Edinburgh, Scotland. Although there has been residential and commercial development on its lower slopes, especially in the south and west, most of the hill is occupied by a local nature reserve, consisting of extensive broadleaf woodland, and is accessible to the public. The hill, which is composed largely of dolerite, was formed by the west-to-east movement of glaciers during the Pleistocene period. There is evidence of prehistoric settlement. Today the hill is popular with walkers, dog-walkers and joggers. Among its interesting features are a 19th-Century tower, a walled garden and a Cold War bunker.

Braid Hills

Braid Hills

The Braid Hills form an area towards the south-western edge of Edinburgh, Scotland.

Blackford Hill

Blackford Hill

Blackford Hill 164 metres (538 ft) is a hill in Edinburgh, the capital city of Scotland. It is in the area of Blackford, between Morningside, and the Braid Hills. Together with the Hermitage of Braid, it comprises the 60.3 hectares Hermitage of Braid and Blackford Hill Local Nature Reserve, within which lies Hermitage House.

Fault (geology)

Fault (geology)

In geology, a fault is a planar fracture or discontinuity in a volume of rock across which there has been significant displacement as a result of rock-mass movements. Large faults within Earth's crust result from the action of plate tectonic forces, with the largest forming the boundaries between the plates, such as the megathrust faults of subduction zones or transform faults. Energy release associated with rapid movement on active faults is the cause of most earthquakes. Faults may also displace slowly, by aseismic creep.

Basalt

Basalt

Basalt is an aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron exposed at or very near the surface of a rocky planet or moon. More than 90% of all volcanic rock on Earth is basalt. Rapid-cooling, fine-grained basalt is chemically equivalent to slow-cooling, coarse-grained gabbro. The eruption of basalt lava is observed by geologists at about 20 volcanoes per year. Basalt is also an important rock type on other planetary bodies in the Solar System. For example, the bulk of the plains of Venus, which cover ~80% of the surface, are basaltic; the lunar maria are plains of flood-basaltic lava flows; and basalt is a common rock on the surface of Mars.

Crag and tail

Crag and tail

A crag is a rocky hill or mountain, generally isolated from other high ground.

Abrasion (geology)

Abrasion (geology)

Abrasion is a process of erosion which occurs when material being transported wears away at a surface over time. It is the process of friction caused by scuffing, scratching, wearing down, marring, and rubbing away of materials. The intensity of abrasion depends on the hardness, concentration, velocity and mass of the moving particles. Abrasion generally occurs in four ways: glaciation slowly grinds rocks picked up by ice against rock surfaces; solid objects transported in river channels make abrasive surface contact with the bed and walls; objects transported in waves breaking on coastlines; and by wind transporting sand or small stones against surface rocks.

Population pyramid of Edinburgh (local authority area) in 2020

Current

Population density map

The most recent official population estimates (2020) are 506,520 for the locality (includes Currie),^[1] 530,990 for the Edinburgh settlement (includes Musselburgh)^[1] and 518,500 for the local authority area.^[2]

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.^[127]

Some 13,000 people or 2.7% of the city's population are of Polish descent. 39,500 people or 8.2% of Edinburgh's population class themselves as Non-White which is an increase from 4% in 2001. Of the Non-White population, the largest group by far are Asian, totalling 26,264 people. Within the Asian population, people of Chinese descent are now the largest sub-group, with 8,076 people, amounting to about 1.7% of the city's total population. The city's population of Indian descent amounts to 6,470 (1.4% of the total population), while there are some 5,858 of Pakistani descent (1.2% of the total population). Although they account for only 1,277 people or 0.3% of the city's population, Edinburgh has the highest number and proportion of people of Bangladeshi descent in Scotland. Over 7,000 people were born in African countries (1.6% of the total population) and nearly 7,000 in the Americas. With the notable exception of Inner London, Edinburgh has a higher number of people born in the United States (over 3,700) than any other city in the UK.^[127]

The proportion of people born outside the UK was 15.9% compared with 8% in 2001.

Place of birth	Estimated resident population (2011)[132]
Poland	11,651
India	4,888
Ireland	4,743
Mainland China [A]	4,188
United States	3,700
Germany	3,500
Pakistan	2,472
Australia	2,100
France	2,000
Spain	2,000
South Africa	1,800
Canada	1,800
Hong Kong	1,600

Historical

A census by the Edinburgh presbytery in 1592 recorded a population of 8,003 adults spread equally north and south of the High Street which runs along the spine of the ridge sloping down from the Castle.^[134] In the 18th and 19th centuries, the population expanded rapidly, rising from 49,000 in 1751 to 136,000 in 1831, primarily due to migration from rural areas.^[98]: 9 As the population grew, problems of overcrowding in the Old Town, particularly in the cramped tenements that lined the present day Royal Mile and the Cowgate, were exacerbated.^[98]: 9 Poor sanitary arrangements resulted in a high incidence of disease,^[98]: 9 with outbreaks of cholera occurring in 1832, 1848 and 1866.^[135]

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. ^[136] Expansion southwards from the Old Town saw more tenements being built in the 19th century, giving rise to Victorian suburbs such as Dalry, Newington, Marchmont and Bruntsfield.^[136]

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.^[137]

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.^[138]

Religion

The High Kirk of Edinburgh, also known as St Giles' Cathedral

In 2018, the Church of Scotland had 20,956 members in 71 congregations in the Presbytery of Edinburgh.^[139] Its most prominent church is St Giles' on the Royal Mile, first dedicated in 1243 but believed to date from before the 12th century.^[140] Saint Giles is historically the patron saint of Edinburgh.^[141] 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,^[142] though the present St Cuthbert's, designed by Hippolyte Blanc, was dedicated in 1894.^[143]

Other Church of Scotland churches include Greyfriars Kirk, the Canongate Kirk, St Andrew's and St George's West Church and the Barclay Church. The Church of Scotland Offices are in Edinburgh,^[144] as is the Assembly Hall where the annual General Assembly is held.^[145]

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh has 27 parishes across the city.^[146] The Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh has his official residence in Greenhill,^[147] the diocesan offices are in nearby Marchmont,^[148] 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.^[149] Its centre is the late 19th-century Gothic style St Mary's Cathedral in the West End's Palmerston Place.^[150] Orthodox Christianity is represented by Pan, Romanian and Russian Orthodox churches. There are several independent churches in the city, both Catholic and Protestant, including Charlotte Chapel, Carrubbers Christian Centre, Bellevue Chapel and Sacred Heart.^[151] There are also churches belonging to Quakers, Christadelphians,^[152] 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^[153] and was completed in 1998.^[154] There is also an Ahmadiyya Muslim community.^[155]

The first recorded presence of a Jewish community in Edinburgh dates back to the late 18th century.^[156] Edinburgh's Orthodox 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.^[157][158] The city also has a Brahma Kumaris centre in the Polwarth area.^[159]

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.^[160] 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^[161] and a Theravadin Thai Buddhist Monastery in Slateford Road.^[162]

Edinburgh is home to a Baháʼí community,^[163] and a Theosophical Society meets in Great King Street.^[164]

Edinburgh has an Inter-Faith Association.^[165]

Edinburgh has over 39 graveyards and cemeteries, many of which are listed and of historical character, including several former church burial grounds.^[166] Examples include Old Calton Burial Ground, Greyfriars Kirkyard and Dean Cemetery.^{[167][168][169]}

Discover more about Demography related topics

Currie

Currie

Currie is a village and suburb on the outskirts of Edinburgh, Scotland, situated 7 miles south west of the city centre. Formerly within the County of Midlothian, it now falls within the jurisdiction of the City of Edinburgh Council. It is situated between Juniper Green to the northeast and Balerno to the southwest. It gives its name to a civil parish.

Musselburgh

Musselburgh

Musselburgh is the largest settlement in East Lothian, Scotland, on the coast of the Firth of Forth, 5 miles (8 km) east of Edinburgh city centre. It has a population of 21,100.

White people

White people

White is a racialized classification of people and a skin color specifier, generally used for people of European ancestry, although the definition can vary depending on context, nationality, and point of view.

Scottish people

Scottish people

The Scots are an ethnic group and nation native to Scotland. Historically, they emerged in the early Middle Ages from an amalgamation of two Celtic-speaking peoples, the Picts and Gaels, who founded the Kingdom of Scotland in the 9th century. In the following two centuries, the Celtic-speaking Cumbrians of Strathclyde and the Germanic-speaking Angles of north Northumbria became part of Scotland. In the High Middle Ages, during the 12th-century Davidian Revolution, small numbers of Norman nobles migrated to the Lowlands. In the 13th century, the Norse-Gaels of the Western Isles became part of Scotland, followed by the Norse of the Northern Isles in the 15th century.

White British

White British

White British is an ethnicity classification used for the native white population identifying as English, Scottish, Welsh, Cornish, Northern Irish, or British in the United Kingdom Census. In the 2011 census, the White British population was 49,997,686, 81.5% of Great Britain's total population. For the United Kingdom entirely, due to different reporting measures within Northern Ireland which includes all those who identified as British with those who identified as Irish, an amalgamated total of 52,320,080 including those who identified as White Irish in Great Britain is given making up 82.8% of the population.

Poles in the United Kingdom

Poles in the United Kingdom

British Poles, alternatively known as Polish British people or Polish Britons, are ethnic Poles who are citizens of the United Kingdom. The term includes people born in the UK who are of Polish descent and Polish-born people who reside in the UK. There are approximately 700,000 people born in Poland resident in the UK. Since the late 20th century, they have become one of the largest ethnic minorities in the country alongside Irish, Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Germans, and Chinese. The Polish language is the second-most spoken language in England and the third-most spoken in the UK after English and Welsh. About 1% of the UK population speaks Polish. The Polish population in the UK has increased more than tenfold since 2001.

Asian people

Asian people

Asian people are the people of Asia. The term may also refer to their descendants.

British Chinese

British Chinese

British Chinese are people of Chinese – particularly Han Chinese – ancestry who reside in the United Kingdom, constituting the second-largest group of Overseas Chinese in Western Europe after France.

Black people

Black people

Black is a racialized classification of people, usually a political and skin color-based category for specific populations with a mid to dark brown complexion. Not all people considered "black" have dark skin; in certain countries, often in socially based systems of racial classification in the Western world, the term "black" is used to describe persons who are perceived as dark-skinned compared to other populations. It is most commonly used for people of sub-Saharan African ancestry and the indigenous peoples of Oceania, though it has been applied in many contexts to other groups, and is no indicator of any close ancestral relationship whatsoever. Indigenous African societies do not use the term black as a racial identity outside of influences brought by Western cultures. The term "black" may or may not be capitalized. The AP Stylebook changed its guide to capitalize the "b" in black in 2020. The ASA Style Guide says that the "b" should not be capitalized. Some perceive the term "black" as a derogatory, outdated, reductive or otherwise unrepresentative label, and as a result neither use nor define it, especially in African countries with little to no history of colonial racial segregation.

Black Scottish people

Black Scottish people

Black Scottish people are a racial or ethnic group of Scottish who identify as or are ethnically African or Black. Used in association with black Scottish identity, the term commonly refers to Scottish of Black African and African-Caribbean descent. The group represent approximately 0.7 percent of the total population of Scotland.

The Bank of Scotland's head office in central Edinburgh

Edinburgh has the strongest economy of any city in the United Kingdom outside London and the highest percentage of professionals in the UK with 43% of the population holding a degree-level or professional qualification.^[170] According to the Centre for International Competitiveness, it is the most competitive large city in the United Kingdom.^[171] It also has the highest gross value added per employee of any city in the UK outside London, measuring £57,594 in 2010.^[172] It was named European Best Large City of the Future for Foreign Direct Investment and Best Large City for Foreign Direct Investment Strategy in the Financial Times fDi magazine awards 2012/13.

In the 19th century, Edinburgh's economy was known for banking and insurance, publishing and printing, and brewing and distilling. Today, its economy is based mainly on financial services, scientific research, higher education, and tourism.^[173] In March 2010, unemployment in Edinburgh was comparatively low at 3.6%, and it remains consistently below the Scottish average of 4.5%.^[174] Edinburgh is the second most visited city by foreign visitors in the UK after London.

Banking has been a mainstay of the Edinburgh economy for over 300 years, since the Bank of Scotland was established by an act of the Scottish Parliament in 1695. Today, the financial services industry, with its particularly strong insurance and investment sectors, and underpinned by Edinburgh-based firms such as Scottish Widows and Standard Life Aberdeen, accounts for the city being the UK's second financial centre after London and Europe's fourth in terms of equity assets.^[175] The NatWest Group (formerly Royal Bank of Scotland Group) opened new global headquarters at Gogarburn in the west of the city in October 2005. The city is home to the headquarters of Bank of Scotland, Sainsbury's Bank,^[176] Tesco Bank,^[177] and TSB Bank.

Edinburgh Park

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 attracts 4.4 million visitors,^[174] and generates over £100M for the local economy.^[178]

As the centre of Scotland's government and legal system, the public sector plays a central role in Edinburgh's economy. Many departments of the Scottish Government are in the city. Other major employers include NHS Scotland and local government administration.^[173] When the £1.3bn Edinburgh & South East Scotland City Region Deal^[179] 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.^{[180][181][182]}

Discover more about Economy related topics

Economy of Edinburgh

Economy of Edinburgh

Edinburgh, the capital city of Scotland, is a powerhouse of the Scottish economy, as well as the wider UK economy. Edinburgh has been consistently one of the most prosperous parts of the country and has the strongest economy of any city in the UK outside London. Financial Times FDi Magazine has named Edinburgh as the "Best Large European City of the Future" and "Best Foreign Direct Investment Strategy " for 2012/13.

Bank of Scotland

Bank of Scotland

The Bank of Scotland plc is a commercial and clearing bank based in Scotland and is part of the Lloyds Banking Group. The bank was established by the Parliament of Scotland in 1695 to develop Scotland's trade with other countries, and aimed to create a stable banking system in the Kingdom of Scotland.

Gross value added

Gross value added

In economics, gross value added (GVA) is the measure of the value of goods and services produced in an area, industry or sector of an economy. "Gross value added is the value of output minus the value of intermediate consumption; it is a measure of the contribution to GDP made by an individual producer, industry or sector; gross value added is the source from which the primary incomes of the System of National Accounts (SNA) are generated and is therefore carried forward into the primary distribution of income account."

Financial Times

Financial Times

The Financial Times (FT) is a British daily business newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nikkei, with core editorial offices across Britain, the United States and continental Europe. In July 2015, Pearson sold the publication to Nikkei for £844 million after owning it since 1957. In 2019, it reported one million paying subscriptions, three-quarters of which were digital subscriptions. The newspaper has a prominent focus on financial journalism and economic analysis over generalist reporting, drawing both criticism and acclaim. The daily sponsors an annual book award and publishes a "Person of the Year" feature. The Financial Times has been called by UC Berkeley economist Bradford DeLong "the best newspaper in the world".

Parliament of Scotland

Parliament of Scotland

The Parliament of Scotland was the legislature of the Kingdom of Scotland from the 13th century until 1707. The parliament evolved during the early 13th century from the king's council of bishops and earls, with the first identifiable parliament being held in 1235 during the reign of Alexander II, when it already possessed a political and judicial role.

Scottish Widows

Scottish Widows

Scottish Widows is a life insurance and pensions company located in Edinburgh, Scotland, and is a subsidiary of Lloyds Banking Group. Its product range includes life assurance and pensions. The company has been providing financial services to the UK market since 1815. The company sells products through independent financial advisers, direct to customers and through Lloyds Banking Group bank branches. The investment and asset management arm was sold in 2013 to Aberdeen Asset Management.

NatWest Group

NatWest Group

NatWest Group plc is a British banking and insurance holding company, based in Edinburgh, Scotland. The group operates a wide variety of banking brands offering personal and business banking, private banking, investment banking, insurance and corporate finance. In the United Kingdom, its main subsidiary companies are National Westminster Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, NatWest Markets and Coutts. The group issues banknotes in Scotland and Northern Ireland; as of 2014, the Royal Bank of Scotland was the only bank in the UK to still print £1 notes.

Sainsbury's Bank

Sainsbury's Bank

Sainsbury's Bank plc, trading as Sainsbury's Bank, is a British bank wholly owned by Sainsbury's, a national supermarket chain in the United Kingdom. The bank began trading on 19 February 1997 as a joint venture between J Sainsbury plc and Bank of Scotland. Sainsbury's took full ownership of the bank in January 2014.

Edinburgh Park

Edinburgh Park

Edinburgh Park is an out-of-town business park in South Gyle, Edinburgh, Scotland. It is west of the city, near Edinburgh Airport and adjacent to the Edinburgh City Bypass. It was opened in 1995. The layout of the park was masterplanned by American architect Richard Meier. Edinburgh Park railway station, which is on the Glasgow to Edinburgh via Falkirk Line, opened in December 2003. Edinburgh Gateway station on the Fife Circle Line is also nearby.

Scots law

Scots law

Scots law is the legal system of Scotland. It is a hybrid or mixed legal system containing civil law and common law elements, that traces its roots to a number of different historical sources. Together with English law and Northern Ireland law, it is one of the three legal systems of the United Kingdom.

NHS Scotland

NHS Scotland

NHS Scotland, sometimes styled NHSScotland, is the publicly funded healthcare system in Scotland and one of the four systems that make up the National Health Service in the United Kingdom. It operates 14 territorial NHS boards across Scotland, supported by seven special non-geographic health boards, and Public Health Scotland.

Economy of Scotland

Economy of Scotland

The economy of Scotland is an open mixed economy which, in 2020, had an estimated nominal gross domestic product (GDP) of $205 billion including oil and gas extraction in Scottish waters. Since the Acts of Union 1707, Scotland's economy has been closely aligned with the economy of the rest of the United Kingdom (UK), and England has historically been its main trading partner. Scotland still conducts the majority of its trade within the UK: in 2017, Scotland's exports totalled £81.4 billion, of which £48.9 billion (60%) was with constituent nations of the UK, £14.9 billion with the rest of the European Union (EU), and £17.6 billion with other parts of the world. Scotland’s imports meanwhile totalled £94.4 billion including intra-UK trade leaving Scotland with a trade deficit of £10.4 billion in 2017.

Festivals and celebrations

Edinburgh festival

The city hosts a series of festivals that run between the end of July and early September each year. The best known of these events are the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the Edinburgh International Festival, the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, the Edinburgh Art Festival and the Edinburgh International Book Festival.^[183]

Pipers emerging from Edinburgh Castle during the Edinburgh Military Tattoo

The longest established of these festivals is the Edinburgh International Festival, which was first held in 1947^[184] and consists mainly of a programme of high-profile theatre productions and classical music performances, featuring international directors, conductors, theatre companies and orchestras.^[185]

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 2017, nearly 3400 different shows were staged in 300 venues across the city.^[186][187] Comedy has become one of the mainstays of the Fringe, with numerous well-known comedians getting their first 'break' there, often by being chosen to receive the Edinburgh Comedy Award.^[188] The Edinburgh Military Tattoo, occupies the Castle Esplanade every night for three weeks each August, with massed pipe bands and military bands 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^[189] and Edinburgh International Science Festival.^[190]

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.^[191] This affected many of the tourist-focused businesses in Edinburgh which depend on the various festivals over summer to return an annual profit.^[192]

Edinburgh's Hogmanay

A Viking longship being burnt during Edinburgh's annual Hogmanay celebrations

The annual Edinburgh Hogmanay celebration was originally an informal street party focused on the Tron Kirk in the Old Town's High Street. Since 1993, it has been officially organised with the focus moved to Princes Street. In 1996, over 300,000 people attended, leading to ticketing of the main street party in later years up to a limit of 100,000 tickets.^[193] Hogmanay now covers four days of processions, concerts and fireworks, with the street party beginning on Hogmanay. Alternative tickets are available for entrance into the Princes Street Gardens concert and Cèilidh, where well-known artists perform and ticket holders can participate in traditional Scottish cèilidh dancing. The event attracts thousands of people from all over the world.^[193]

Beltane and other festivals

On the night of 30 April the Beltane Fire Festival takes place on Calton Hill, involving a procession followed by scenes inspired by pagan old spring fertility celebrations.^[194] At the beginning of October each year the Dussehra Hindu Festival is also held on Calton Hill.^[195]

Music, theatre and film

Edinburgh Festival Theatre

Outside the Festival season, Edinburgh supports several theatres and production companies. The Royal Lyceum Theatre has its own company, while the King's Theatre, Edinburgh Festival Theatre and Edinburgh Playhouse stage large touring shows. The Traverse Theatre presents a more contemporary repertoire. Amateur theatre companies productions are staged at the Bedlam Theatre, Church Hill Theatre and King's Theatre among others.^[196]

The Usher Hall is Edinburgh's premier venue for classical music, as well as occasional popular music concerts.^[197] 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.^[198]

Traverse Theatre

Edinburgh has one repertory cinema, The Cameo, and formerly, the Edinburgh Filmhouse as well as the independent Dominion Cinema and a range of multiplexes.^[199]

Edinburgh has a healthy popular music scene. Occasionally large concerts are staged at Murrayfield and Meadowbank, while mid-sized events take place at smaller venues such as 'The Corn Exchange', 'The Liquid Rooms' and 'The Bongo Club'. In 2010, PRS for Music listed Edinburgh among the UK's top ten 'most musical' cities.^[200] Several city pubs are well known for their live performances of folk music. They include 'Sandy Bell's' in Forrest Road, 'Captain's Bar' in South College Street and 'Whistlebinkies' in South Bridge.

Like many other cities in the UK, numerous nightclub venues host Electronic dance music events.^[201]

Edinburgh is home to a flourishing group of contemporary composers such as Nigel Osborne, Peter Nelson, Lyell Cresswell, Hafliði Hallgrímsson, Edward Harper, Robert Crawford, Robert Dow and John McLeod. McLeod's music is heard regularly on BBC Radio 3 and throughout the UK.^[202]

Media

Newspapers

The main local newspaper is the Edinburgh Evening News. It is owned and published alongside its sister titles The Scotsman and Scotland on Sunday by JPIMedia.^[203]

Radio

The city has two commercial radio stations: Forth 1, a station which broadcasts mainstream chart music, and Forth 2 on medium wave which plays classic hits.^[204] Capital Scotland, Heart Scotland and Eklipse Sports Radio 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 October 2022 with numerous community stations onboard

Television

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^[205] 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^[206] and STV Edinburgh existed from 2015 to 2018.^[207][208]

Museums, libraries and galleries

National Gallery of Scotland

Edinburgh has many museums and libraries. These include the National Museum of Scotland, the National Library of Scotland, National War Museum, the Museum of Edinburgh, Surgeons' Hall Museum, the Writers' Museum, the Museum of Childhood and Dynamic Earth. The Museum on The Mound has exhibits on money and banking.^[209]

Edinburgh Zoo, covering 82 acres (33 ha) on Corstorphine Hill, is the second most visited paid tourist attraction in Scotland,^[210] and home to two giant pandas, Tian Tian and Yang Guang, on loan from the People's Republic of China.

Edinburgh is also home to The Royal Yacht 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 numerous smaller art galleries.^[211] 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.

National Museum of Scotland

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.^[212]

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.

There are also many small private shops/galleries that provide space to showcase works from local artists.^[213]

Shopping

The locale around Princes Street is the main shopping area in the city centre, with souvenir shops, chain stores such as Boots the Chemist, Edinburgh Woollen Mill, H&M and Jenners.^[214] George Street, north of Princes Street, is the preferred location for some upmarket shops and independent stores.^[214] At the east end of Princes Street, the redeveloped St James Quarter opened its doors in June 2021,^[215] while next to the Balmoral Hotel and Waverley Station is Waverley Market. Multrees Walk, adjacent to the St. James Centre, is a recent addition to the central shopping district, dominated by the presence of Harvey Nichols. Shops here include Louis Vuitton, Mulberry and Calvin Klein.^[214]

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.^[216]

Discover more about Culture related topics

List of Edinburgh festivals

List of Edinburgh festivals

This is a list of arts and cultural festivals regularly taking place in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Edinburgh Art Festival

Edinburgh Art Festival

The Edinburgh Art Festival is an annual visual arts festival, held in Edinburgh, Scotland, during August and coincides with the Edinburgh International and Fringe festivals. The Art Festival was established in 2004, and receives public funding from Creative Scotland. In 2022, Kim McAleese was appointed Festival Director, succeeding Sorcha Carey. Carey is now Director at Collective, Edinburgh.

Edinburgh International Book Festival

Edinburgh International Book Festival

The Edinburgh International Book Festival (EIBF) is a book festival that takes place in the last three weeks of August every year in Charlotte Square in the centre of Scotland’s capital city, Edinburgh. Billed as The largest festival of its kind in the world, the festival hosts a concentrated flurry of cultural and political talks and debates, along with its well-established children's events programme.

Edinburgh Comedy Awards

Edinburgh Comedy Awards

The Dave's Edinburgh Comedy Awards are presented to the comedy shows deemed to have been the best at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland. Established in 1981, they are the most prestigious comedy prize in the United Kingdom. The awards have been directed and produced by Nica Burns since 1984.

Military band

Military band

A military band is a group of personnel that performs musical duties for military functions, usually for the armed forces. A typical military band consists mostly of wind and percussion instruments. The conductor of a band commonly bears the title of Bandmaster or Music director. Ottoman military bands are thought to be the oldest variety of military marching bands in the world, dating from the 13th century.

Edinburgh International Film Festival

Edinburgh International Film Festival

The Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF), established in 1947, in is the world's oldest continually running film festival. EIFF presents both UK and international films, in all genres and lengths. It also presents themed retrospectives and other specialized programming strands.

COVID-19 pandemic

COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified in an outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019. Attempts to contain it there failed, allowing the virus to spread to other areas of Asia and later worldwide. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern on 30 January 2020, and a pandemic on 11 March 2020. As of 10 March 2023, the pandemic had caused more than 676 million cases and 6.88 million confirmed deaths, making it one of the deadliest in history.

Edinburgh's Hogmanay

Edinburgh's Hogmanay

Edinburgh's Hogmanay is the observance of Hogmanay—the Scottish celebration of the New Year—held in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Longship

Longship

Longships were a type of specialised Scandinavian warships that have a long history in Scandinavia, with their existence being archaeologically proven and documented from at least the fourth century BC. Originally invented and used by the Norsemen for commerce, exploration, and warfare during the Viking Age, many of the longship's characteristics were adopted by other cultures, like Anglo-Saxons, and continued to influence shipbuilding for centuries.

Hogmanay

Hogmanay

Hogmanay is the Scots word for the last day of the old year and is synonymous with the celebration of the New Year in the Scottish manner. It is normally followed by further celebration on the morning of New Year's Day and in some cases, 2 January—a Scottish bank holiday.

Cèilidh

Cèilidh

A cèilidh or céilí is a traditional Scottish or Irish social gathering. In its most basic form, it simply means a social visit. In contemporary usage, it usually involves dancing and playing Gaelic folk music, either at a house party or a larger concert at a social hall or other community gathering place.

Beltane Fire Festival

Beltane Fire Festival

Beltane Fire Festival is an annual participatory arts event and ritual, held on 30 April on Calton Hill in Edinburgh.

Local government

Edinburgh City Chambers is the headquarters of the City of Edinburgh Council.

Following local government reorganisation in 1996, the City of Edinburgh Council constitutes one of the 32 council areas of Scotland.^[217] Like all other local authorities of Scotland, the council has powers over most matters of local administration such as housing, planning, local transport, parks, economic development and regeneration.^[218] The council comprises 63 elected councillors, returned from 17 multi-member electoral wards in the city.^[219]

Following the 2007 City of Edinburgh Council election the incumbent Labour Party lost majority control of the council after 23 years to a Liberal Democrat/SNP coalition.^[220]

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 majority support 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.^[221]

The city's coat of arms was registered by the Lord Lyon King of Arms in 1732.^[222]

Scottish Parliament

The debating chamber of the Scottish Parliament

Edinburgh, like all of Scotland, is represented in the Scottish Parliament, situated in the Holyrood area of the city. For electoral purposes, the city is divided into six constituencies which, along with 3 seats outside of the city, form part of the Lothian region.^[223] Each constituency elects one Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) by the first past the post system of election, and the region elects seven additional MSPs to produce a result based on a form of proportional representation.^[223]

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 and Scottish Greens had two regional MSP 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.

UK Parliament

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, Edinburgh South, Edinburgh South West, and Edinburgh West,^[224] each constituency electing one member by the first past the post system.

Since the 2019 UK General election, Edinburgh is represented by three Scottish National Party MPs (Deirdre Brock, Edinburgh North and Leith/Tommy Sheppard, Edinburgh East/Joanna Cherry, Edinburgh South West), one Liberal Democrat MP in Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) and one Labour MP in Edinburgh South (Ian Murray).

Discover more about Governance related topics

Politics of Edinburgh

Politics of Edinburgh

The politics of Edinburgh are expressed in the deliberations and decisions of the City of Edinburgh Council, in elections to the council, the Scottish Parliament and the UK Parliament.

Edinburgh City Chambers

Edinburgh City Chambers

Edinburgh City Chambers in Edinburgh, Scotland, is the meeting place of the City of Edinburgh Council and its predecessors, Edinburgh Corporation and Edinburgh District Council. It is a Category A listed building.

City of Edinburgh Council

City of Edinburgh Council

The City of Edinburgh Council is the local government authority covering the City of Edinburgh council area. The majority of the council area is the area of Edinburgh, capital of Scotland. With a population of 518,500 in mid-2019, it is the second most populous local authority area in Scotland.

Councillor

Councillor

A councillor is an elected representative for a local government council in some countries.

2007 City of Edinburgh Council election

2007 City of Edinburgh Council election

Elections to the City of Edinburgh Council were held on 3 May 2007, the same day as the Scottish Parliament general election. The election was the first one using 17 new wards created as a result of the Local Governance (Scotland) Act 2004, each ward will elect three or four councillors using the single transferable vote system form of proportional representation. The new wards replace 58 single-member wards which used the plurality system of election.

Scottish Liberal Democrats

Scottish Liberal Democrats

The Scottish Liberal Democrats is a liberal, federalist political party in Scotland, a part of the United Kingdom Liberal Democrats. The party currently holds 4 of the 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament and 4 of the 59 Scottish seats in the House of Commons.

Scottish National Party

Scottish National Party

The Scottish National Party is a Scottish nationalist and social democratic political party in Scotland. The SNP supports and campaigns for Scottish independence or secession from the United Kingdom and for Scotland's membership of the European Union, with a platform based on civic nationalism. The SNP is the largest political party in Scotland, where it has the most seats in the Scottish Parliament and 45 out of the 59 Scottish seats in the House of Commons at Westminster, and it is the third-largest political party by membership in the United Kingdom, behind the Labour Party and the Conservative Party. The current Scottish National Party leader is Humza Yousaf, who replaced Nicola Sturgeon after a leadership election in March 2023.

2022 City of Edinburgh Council election

2022 City of Edinburgh Council election

The 2022 election to the City of Edinburgh Council took place on Thursday 5 May 2022, on the same day as the 31 other local authorities in Scotland. The election used the same 17 wards used in 2017; each ward elects three or four councillors using the single transferable vote system.

Coat of arms of Edinburgh

Coat of arms of Edinburgh

The arms of the city of Edinburgh, more properly the arms of the city council, were registered with the Lord Lyon King of Arms in 1732, having been used unofficially for several centuries previously. The central symbol is a heraldic castle, representing Edinburgh Castle.

Lord Lyon King of Arms

Lord Lyon King of Arms

The Right Honourable the Lord Lyon King of Arms, the head of Lyon Court, is the most junior of the Great Officers of State in Scotland and is the Scottish official with responsibility for regulating heraldry in that country, issuing new grants of arms, and serving as the judge of the Court of the Lord Lyon, the oldest heraldic court in the world that is still in daily operation.

Scottish Parliament

Scottish Parliament

The Scottish Parliament is the devolved, unicameral legislature of Scotland. Located in the Holyrood area of the capital city, Edinburgh, it is frequently referred to by the metonym Holyrood. The Parliament is a democratically elected body comprising 129 members known as Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs), elected for five-year terms under the additional member system: 73 MSPs represent individual geographical constituencies elected by the plurality (first-past-the-post) system, while a further 56 are returned as list members from eight additional member regions. Each region elects seven party-list MSPs. Each region elects 15 to 17 MSPs in total. The most recent general election to the Parliament was held on 6 May 2021, with the Scottish National Party winning a plurality.

Holyrood, Edinburgh

Holyrood, Edinburgh

Holyrood is an area in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, lying east of the city centre, at the foot of the Royal Mile.

Air

Edinburgh Airport

Edinburgh Airport is Scotland's busiest airport and the principal international gateway to the capital, handling over 14.7 million passengers; it was also the sixth-busiest airport in the United Kingdom by total passengers in 2019.^[225][226] In anticipation of rising passenger numbers, the former operator of the airport BAA outlined a draft masterplan in 2011 to provide for the expansion of the airfield and the terminal building. In June 2012, Global Infrastructure Partners purchased the airport for £807 million.^[227] The possibility of building a second runway to cope with an increased number of aircraft movements has also been mooted.^[228]

Buses

A Lothian Bus on North Bridge

Travel in Edinburgh is undertaken predominantly by bus. Lothian Buses, the successor company to Edinburgh Corporation Transport Department, operate the majority of city bus services within the city and to surrounding suburbs, with the most routes running via Princes Street. Services further afield operate from the Edinburgh Bus Station off St Andrew Square and Waterloo Place and are operated mainly by Stagecoach East Scotland, Scottish Citylink, National Express Coaches and Borders Buses.

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.^[229] In 2019, Lothian Buses recorded 124.2 million passenger journeys.^[230]

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. ^[231]

Railway

A train preparing to depart from Edinburgh Waverley Station

Edinburgh Waverley is the second-busiest railway station in Scotland, with only Glasgow Central handling more passengers. On the evidence of passenger entries and exits between April 2015 and March 2016, Edinburgh Waverley is the fifth-busiest station outside London; it is also the UK's second biggest station in terms of the number of platforms and area size.^[232] Waverley is the terminus for most trains arriving from London King's Cross and the departure point for many rail services within Scotland operated by ScotRail.

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.^[233] 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.

Trams

Edinburgh Trams in Shandwick Place

Edinburgh Trams became operational on 31 May 2014. The city had been without a tram system since Edinburgh Corporation Tramways ceased on 16 November 1956.^[234] Following parliamentary approval in 2007, construction began in early 2008. The first stage of the project was expected to be completed by July 2011^[235] but, following delays caused by extra utility work and a long-running contractual dispute between the council and the main contractor, Bilfinger SE, the project was rescheduled.^{[236][237][238]} The completed line is 8.7 mi (14.0 km) in length, running from Edinburgh Airport, west of the city, to its terminus at York Place in the city centre's East End. Phase two of the tram project, which sees the existing section of Line 1 (Airport to York Place) tram line extended down Leith Walk to Ocean Terminal and terminate at Newhaven, adding an additional eight new tram stops and connecting Leith and the waterfront to the tram system. As of August 2022 this project is currently nearing completion, and is scheduled to open to passenger use in spring 2023.^[239]

Should the original plan be taken to completion, trams will also run from Haymarket through Ravelston and Craigleith to Granton Square on the Waterfront Edinburgh.^[240] Long-term proposals envisage a line running west from the airport to Ratho and Newbridge and another connecting Granton Square to Newhaven via Lower Granton Road, thus completing the Line 1 (North Edinburgh) loop.^[241] A further line serving the south of the city has also been suggested.

Edinburgh tramway map

Lothian Buses and Edinburgh Trams are both owned and operated by Transport for Edinburgh.

Despite its modern transport links, Edinburgh has been named the most congested city in the UK for the fourth year running. ^[242]

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Edinburgh Airport

Edinburgh Airport

Edinburgh Airport is an airport located in the Ingliston area of Edinburgh, Scotland. It was the busiest airport in Scotland in 2019, handling over 14.7 million passengers. It was also the sixth-busiest airport in the United Kingdom by total passengers in 2019. It is located 5 NM west of the city centre, just off the M8 and M9 motorways. It is owned and operated by Global Infrastructure Partners, who are also a minority shareholder of Gatwick Airport. The airport has one runway and one passenger terminal and employs about 2,500 people.

Global Infrastructure Partners

Global Infrastructure Partners

Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) is an infrastructure investment fund making equity and selected debt investments. GIP's main headquarters are located in New York City and its equity investments are based on infrastructure assets in the energy, transport and water & waste sectors. GIP employs approximately 150 investment and operational professionals and has offices in New York, London and Sydney, with operational headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut. In total as of 2018, its portfolio companies employ approximately 21,000 people.

North Bridge, Edinburgh

North Bridge, Edinburgh

North Bridge is a road bridge and street in Edinburgh linking the High Street with Princes Street, and the Old Town with the New Town. The current bridge was built between 1894 and 1897. A previous North Bridge, built between 1763 and 1772, stood until 1896.

Lothian Buses

Lothian Buses

Lothian Buses Limited is a major bus operator based in Edinburgh, Scotland. It is the largest municipal bus company in the United Kingdom: the City of Edinburgh Council owns 91%, Midlothian Council 5%, East Lothian Council 3% and West Lothian Council 1%.

Public transport bus service

Public transport bus service

Public transport bus services are generally based on regular operation of transit buses along a route calling at agreed bus stops according to a published public transport timetable.

St Andrew Square, Edinburgh

St Andrew Square, Edinburgh

St Andrew Square is a garden square in Edinburgh, Scotland located at the east end of George Street. The gardens, part of the collection of New Town Gardens, are owned by a number of private owners, managed by Essential Edinburgh and opened to the public in 2008. The construction of St Andrew Square began in 1772, as the first part of the New Town, designed by James Craig. Within six years of its completion St Andrew Square became one of the most desirable and most fashionable residential areas in the city. As the 19th century came to a close, St Andrew Square evolved into the commercial centre of the city.

Stagecoach East Scotland

Stagecoach East Scotland

Stagecoach East Scotland is an operating region of Stagecoach UK Bus, with its regional base in Dunfermline, Scotland. The company operators under six different brands.

Scottish Citylink

Scottish Citylink

Scottish Citylink is a long-distance express coach operator in Scotland and Ireland and formerly England. The company was formed as a subsidiary of Scottish Transport Group in March 1985. It is operated as a 63/37 joint venture between ComfortDelGro and Stagecoach.

National Express Coaches

National Express Coaches

National Express is an intercity and Inter-regional coach operator providing services throughout Great Britain. It is a subsidiary of National Express Group. Most services are subcontracted to local coach companies. The company's head office is in offices above Birmingham Coach Station.

Borders Buses

Borders Buses

Borders Buses operates both local and regional bus services in the City of Edinburgh, East Lothian, Midlothian and Scottish Borders, Scotland, as well as Cumbria and Northumberland, England. It is a subsidiary of West Coast Motors.

Tour bus service

Tour bus service

A tour bus service is an escorted tour or bus service that takes visitors sightseeing, with routes around tourist attractions.

Traffic congestion

Traffic congestion

Traffic congestion is a condition in transport that is characterized by slower speeds, longer trip times, and increased vehicular queueing. Traffic congestion on urban road networks has increased substantially since the 1950s. When traffic demand is great enough that the interaction between vehicles slows the speed of the traffic stream, this results in some congestion. While congestion is a possibility for any mode of transportation, this article will focus on automobile congestion on public roads.

New College of the University of Edinburgh

There are three universities in Edinburgh: the University of Edinburgh, Heriot-Watt University and Edinburgh Napier University.

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.^[243] Originally centred on Old College the university expanded to premises on The Mound, the Royal Mile and George Square.^[243] 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.^[244]

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, 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 the Napier College, which was renamed Napier Polytechnic in 1986 and gained university status in 1992.^[245] Edinburgh Napier University has campuses in the south and west of the city, including the former Merchiston Tower and Craiglockhart Hydropathic.^[245] It is home to the Screen Academy Scotland.

Queen Margaret University was located in Edinburgh before it moved to a new campus just outside the city boundary on the edge of Musselburgh in 2008.^[246]

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 Drawing Academy of Edinburgh, founded in 1760, became the Edinburgh College of Art in 1907.^[247]

There are 18 nursery, 94 primary and 23 secondary schools administered by the City of Edinburgh Council.^[248] Edinburgh is home to The Royal High School, one of the oldest schools in the country and the world. The city also has several independent, fee-paying schools including Edinburgh Academy, Fettes College, George Heriot's School, George Watson's College, Merchiston Castle School, Stewart's Melville College and The Mary Erskine School. In 2009, the proportion of pupils attending independent schools was 24.2%, far above the Scottish national average of just over 7% and higher than in any other region of Scotland.^[249] In August 2013, the City of Edinburgh Council opened the city's first stand-alone Gaelic primary school, Bun-sgoil Taobh na Pàirce.^[250]

Discover more about Education related topics

New College, Edinburgh

New College, Edinburgh

New College is a historic building at the University of Edinburgh which houses the university's School of Divinity. It is one of the largest and most renowned centres for studies in Theology and Religious Studies in the United Kingdom. Students in M.A., M.Th. and Ph.D. degree programmes come from over 30 countries, and are taught by almost 40 full-time members of the academic staff. New College is situated on The Mound in the north of Edinburgh's Old Town.

Heriot-Watt University

Heriot-Watt University

Heriot-Watt University is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was established in 1821 as the School of Arts of Edinburgh, the world's first mechanics' institute, and subsequently granted university status by royal charter in 1966. It is the eighth-oldest higher education institute in the UK. The name Heriot-Watt was taken from Scottish inventor James Watt and Scottish philanthropist and goldsmith George Heriot.

Edinburgh Napier University

Edinburgh Napier University

Edinburgh Napier University is a public university in Edinburgh, Scotland. Napier Technical College, the predecessor of the university, was founded in 1964, taking its name from 16th-century Scottish mathematician and philosopher John Napier. The technical college was inaugurated as a university in 1992 by Lord Douglas-Hamilton, becoming Napier University. In 2009, the university was renamed Edinburgh Napier University.

Ancient universities of Scotland

Ancient universities of Scotland

The ancient universities of Scotland are medieval and renaissance universities that continue to exist in the present day. The majority of the ancient universities of the British Isles are located within Scotland, and have a number of distinctive features in common, being governed by a series of measures laid down in the Universities (Scotland) Acts 1858–1966. The Universities (Scotland) Act 1966 uses the term 'older universities' to refer to St Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Edinburgh. The same act provided for the independence from St Andrews of Dundee, which was then granted a similar form of governance under its royal charter.

Old College, University of Edinburgh

Old College, University of Edinburgh

Old College is a late 18th-century to early 19th-century building of the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. It is located on South Bridge, and presently houses parts of the University's administration, the University of Edinburgh School of Law, and the Talbot Rice Gallery.

King's Buildings

King's Buildings

The King's Buildings is a campus of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. Located in the suburb of Blackford, the site contains most of the schools within the College of Science and Engineering, excepting only the School of Informatics and part of the School of Geosciences, which are located at the central George Square campus. The campus lies south of West Mains Road, west of Mayfield Road and east of Blackford Hill, about 2 miles (3.2 km) south of George Square. Scotland's Rural College (SRUC) and Biomathematics and Statistics Scotland (BioSS) also have facilities there.

Little France

Little France

Little France is a suburb of Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. It is on the A7, approximately 4 miles (6.4 km) south of the city centre.

Riccarton, Edinburgh

Riccarton, Edinburgh

Riccarton is an area in Edinburgh's Green Belt, in Scotland. It is mainly undeveloped, with much farmland and few houses.

James Watt

James Watt

James Watt was a Scottish inventor, mechanical engineer, and chemist who improved on Thomas Newcomen's 1712 Newcomen steam engine with his Watt steam engine in 1776, which was fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both his native Great Britain and the rest of the world.

George Heriot

George Heriot

George Heriot was a Scottish goldsmith and philanthropist. He is chiefly remembered today as the founder of George Heriot's School, a large independent school in Edinburgh; his name has also been given to Heriot-Watt University, as well as several streets in the same city.

Merchiston Tower

Merchiston Tower

Merchiston Tower, also known as Merchiston Castle, was probably built by Alexander Napier, the 2nd Laird of Merchiston around 1454. It serves as the seat for Clan Napier. It was the home of John Napier, the 8th Laird of Merchiston and the inventor of logarithms, who was born there in 1550.

Craiglockhart Hydropathic

Craiglockhart Hydropathic

Craiglockhart Hydropathic, now a part of Edinburgh Napier University and known as Craiglockhart Campus, is a building with surrounding grounds in Craiglockhart, Edinburgh, Scotland. As part of a large extension programme by the university in the early 2000s the original building and surrounding campus underwent significant restoration and modernisation as a result many of the original interior features of the building are no longer visible. The exterior of the building has been preserved.

The Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh is the main public hospital for the city.

The main NHS Lothian hospitals serving the Edinburgh area are the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, which includes the University of Edinburgh Medical School, and the Western General Hospital,^[251] which has a large cancer treatment centre and nurse-led Minor Injuries Clinic.^[252] The Royal Edinburgh Hospital in Morningside specialises in mental health. The Royal Hospital for Children and Young People, colloquially referred to as the Sick Kids, is a specialist paediatrics hospital.

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.^[251]

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Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh

Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh

The Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh (RIE), often known as the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary (ERI), was established in 1729 and is the oldest voluntary hospital in Scotland. The new buildings of 1879 were claimed to be the largest voluntary hospital in the United Kingdom, and later on, the Empire. The hospital moved to a new 900 bed site in 2003 in Little France. It is the site of clinical medicine teaching as well as a teaching hospital for the University of Edinburgh Medical School. In 1960, the first successful kidney transplant performed in the UK was at this hospital. In 1964, the world's first coronary care unit was established at the hospital. It is the only site for liver, pancreas and pancreatic islet cell transplantation and one of two sites for kidney transplantation in Scotland. In 2012, the Emergency Department had 113,000 patient attendances, the highest number in Scotland. It is managed by NHS Lothian.

NHS Lothian

NHS Lothian

NHS Lothian is one of the 14 regions of NHS Scotland. It provides healthcare services in the City of Edinburgh, East Lothian, Midlothian and West Lothian areas. Its headquarters are at Waverley Gate, Edinburgh

University of Edinburgh Medical School

University of Edinburgh Medical School

The University of Edinburgh Medical School is the medical school of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and the United Kingdom and part of the College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine. It was established in 1726, during the Scottish Enlightenment, making it the oldest medical school in the United Kingdom and is one of the oldest medical schools in the English-speaking world.

Western General Hospital

Western General Hospital

The Western General Hospital is a health facility at Craigleith, Edinburgh, Scotland. It is managed by NHS Lothian.

Royal Edinburgh Hospital

Royal Edinburgh Hospital

The Royal Edinburgh Hospital is a psychiatric hospital in Morningside Place, Edinburgh, Scotland. It is managed by NHS Lothian.

Royal Hospital for Children and Young People

Royal Hospital for Children and Young People

The Royal Hospital for Children and Young People is a hospital that specialises in paediatric healthcare. The hospital replaced the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Sciennes. It forms part of the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh campus in the Edinburgh BioQuarter at Little France, Edinburgh. The facility provides care for children and young people from birth to around 16 years of age and is managed by NHS Lothian.

Spire Healthcare

Spire Healthcare

Spire Healthcare Group plc is the second-largest provider of private healthcare in the United Kingdom. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.

Football

Men's

Edinburgh has three football clubs that play in the Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL): Heart of Midlothian, founded in 1874, Hibernian, founded in 1875 and F.C. Edinburgh, founded in 1966.

Heart of Midlothian and Hibernian are known locally as "Hearts" and "Hibs", respectively. Both play in the Scottish Premiership.^[253] 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, 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.^[254]

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.

Women's

In women's football, Hearts, Hibs and Spartans play in the SWPL 1.^[255] Hutchison Vale and Boroughmuir Thistle play in the SWPL 2.^[256]

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.^[257] Edinburgh is also home to Scottish Premiership teams Boroughmuir RFC, Currie RFC, the Edinburgh Academicals, Heriot's Rugby Club and Watsonians RFC.^[258]

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.^[259]

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.

• 

  Tynecastle Park

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  Easter Road Stadium

• 

  Murrayfield Stadium

• 

  Meadowbank Stadium

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  Edinburgh Marathon

• 

  Murrayfield Ice Rink

Other sports

The Scottish cricket team, which represents Scotland internationally, play their home matches at the Grange cricket club.^[260]

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 play 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.^[261]

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 are the only women's professional basketball team in Scotland. Established in 2016, the team compete in the UK wide Women's British Basketball League and play 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 which 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.^[262]

Edinburgh has also hosted national and international sports events including the World Student Games, the 1970 British Commonwealth Games,^[263] the 1986 Commonwealth Games^[263] and the inaugural 2000 Commonwealth Youth Games.^[264] 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.^[265]

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.^[266] The city's most successful non-professional team are the Edinburgh Wolves who play at Meadowbank Stadium.^[267]

The Edinburgh Marathon has been held annually in the city since 2003 with more than 16,000 runners taking part on each occasion.^[268] Its organisers have called it "the fastest marathon in the UK" due to the elevation drop of 40 m (130 ft).^[269] The city also organises a half-marathon, as well as 10 km (6.2 mi) and 5 km (3.1 mi) races, including a 5 km (3 mi) 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^[270] and again in 2008,^[271] 2010, 2014 and 2015.

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Association football

Association football

Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel a ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is to score more goals than the opposite team by moving the ball beyond the goal line into a rectangular-framed goal defended by the opposing side. Traditionally, the game has been played over two 45-minute halves, for a total match time of 90 minutes. With an estimated 250 million players active in over 200 countries and territories, it is considered the world's most popular sport.

Heart of Midlothian F.C.

Heart of Midlothian F.C.

Heart of Midlothian Football Club, commonly known as Hearts, is a professional football club in Edinburgh, Scotland. The team competes in the Scottish Professional Football League. Hearts, the oldest and most successful football club in the Scottish capital, was formed in 1874, its name influenced by Walter Scott's novel The Heart of Midlothian. The club crest is based on the Heart of Midlothian mosaic on the city's Royal Mile; the team's colours are maroon and white.

Hibernian F.C.

Hibernian F.C.

Hibernian Football Club, commonly known as Hibs, is a professional football club based in the Leith area of Edinburgh, Scotland. The club plays in the Scottish Premiership, the top tier of the Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL). The club was founded in 1875 by members of Edinburgh's Irish community, and named after the Roman word for Ireland. Nowadays, while the Irish heritage of Hibernian is still reflected in the name, colours and badge, support for the club is now based more on geography than ethnicity or religion. Their local rivals are Heart of Midlothian, with whom they contest the Edinburgh derby.

F.C. Edinburgh

F.C. Edinburgh

Football Club of Edinburgh, formerly known as Edinburgh City F.C., is a semi-professional senior Scottish football club which plays in Scottish League One, the third tier of the Scottish Professional Football League. The club play at Meadowbank Stadium, returning to the rebuilt arena in 2022 after five years at Ainslie Park.

Edinburgh derby

Edinburgh derby

The Edinburgh derby is an informal title given to any football match played between Scottish clubs Heart of Midlothian (Hearts) and Hibernian (Hibs), the two oldest professional clubs based in Edinburgh, Scotland. The two clubs have a fierce rivalry that dates back to the clubs being founded in the mid-1870s, which makes it one of the longest running rivalries in world football. The first match between the clubs was played on the Meadows on Christmas Day 1875.

List of Scottish football champions

List of Scottish football champions

The Scottish football champions are the winners of the highest league in Scottish football, namely the Scottish Football League (SFL) from 1890 until 1998, the Scottish Premier League (SPL) from 1998 until 2013 and the Scottish Premiership thereafter.

Scottish Cup

Scottish Cup

The Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup, commonly known as the Scottish Cup, is an annual association football knock-out cup competition for men's football clubs in Scotland. The competition was first held in 1873–74. Entry is open to all 122 clubs with full membership of the Scottish Football Association (SFA), along with up to eight other clubs who are associate members.

Edinburgh City F.C. (1928)

Edinburgh City F.C. (1928)

Edinburgh City Football Club was an amateur Scottish football club which played in the Scottish Football League in the 1930s and 1940s, but went out of business in the 1950s. A new club adopted the Edinburgh City name in 1986.

Leith Athletic F.C.

Leith Athletic F.C.

Leith Athletic Football Club is a football club based in the Leith area of Edinburgh, Scotland. They compete in the East of Scotland Football League, Conference A. First team matches are played at Peffermill 3G.

Meadowbank Stadium

Meadowbank Stadium

Meadowbank Stadium is a multi-purpose sports facility located in the Meadowbank area of Edinburgh, Scotland. Built on the site of the earlier New Meadowbank and Old Meadowbank sports venues, it was originally built to host the 1970 Commonwealth Games. It also hosted the Games in 1986, becoming the first venue to host the Games twice. It is the current home of Scottish League One side F.C. Edinburgh.

Livingston, West Lothian

Livingston, West Lothian

Livingston is the largest town in West Lothian, Scotland. Designated in 1962, it is the fourth post-war new town to be built in Scotland. Taking its name from a village of the same name incorporated into the new town, it was originally developed in the then-counties of Midlothian and West Lothian along the banks of the River Almond. It is situated approximately fifteen miles (25 km) west of Edinburgh and thirty miles (50 km) east of Glasgow, and is close to the towns of Broxburn to the north-east and Bathgate to the north-west.

Livingston F.C.

Livingston F.C.

Livingston Football Club is a Scottish professional football club based in Livingston, West Lothian.

Sir Walter Scott

Edinburgh has a long literary tradition, which became especially evident during the Scottish Enlightenment. This heritage and the city's lively literary life in the present led to it being declared the first UNESCO City of Literature in 2004.^[272][273] Prominent authors who have lived in Edinburgh include the economist Adam Smith, born in Kirkcaldy and author of The Wealth of Nations,^[274] 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,^[275] 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; diarist Janet Harden; Irvine Welsh, author of Trainspotting, whose novels are mostly set in the city and often written in colloquial Scots; ^[276] Ian Rankin, author of the Inspector Rebus series of crime thrillers, Alexander McCall Smith, author of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series,^[277] and J. K. Rowling, author of Harry Potter, who wrote much of her first book in Edinburgh coffee shops and now lives in the Cramond area of the city.^[278]

Statue of James Clerk Maxwell, George Street, Edinburgh

Scotland has a rich history of science and engineering, with Edinburgh producing a number of leading figures. John Napier, inventor of logarithms, was born in Merchiston Tower and lived and died in the city.^[279] 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,^[274] as was the engineer and telephone pioneer Alexander Graham Bell.^[274] 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;^[280] Charles Darwin, the biologist who propounded the theory of natural selection;^[274] David Hume, philosopher, economist and historian;^[274] James Hutton, regarded as the "Father of Geology";^[274] Joseph Black, the chemist who discovered Magnesium and Carbon Dioxide, and one of the founders of Thermodynamics;^[274] pioneering medical researchers Joseph Lister and James Young Simpson;^[274] chemist and discoverer of the element nitrogen Daniel Rutherford; Colin Maclaurin, mathematician and developer of the Maclaurin series,^[281] and Ian Wilmut, the geneticist involved in the cloning of Dolly the sheep just outside Edinburgh, at the Roslin Institute.^[274] The stuffed carcass of Dolly the sheep is now on display in the National Museum of Scotland.^[282] 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.^[283]

Deacon Brodie on Edinburgh's Royal Mile

Edinburgh has been the birthplace of actors like Alastair Sim and Sir Sean Connery, known for being the first cinematic James Bond,^[284] the comedian and actor Ronnie Corbett, best known as one of The Two Ronnies,^[285] and the impressionist Rory Bremner. Famous 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 some very successful musicians in recent decades, particularly 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, Boards of Canada and Idlewild.

Greyfriars Bobby Fountain

Edinburgh is the birthplace of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair who attended the city's Fettes College.^[286]

Notorious 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,^[287] and murderers Burke and Hare who delivered fresh corpses for dissection to the famous anatomist Robert Knox.^[288]

Another well-known 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.^[289]

Discover more about People related topics

List of people from Edinburgh

List of people from Edinburgh

This list contains famous or notable people who were either born, residents, or otherwise closely associated with the City of Edinburgh, Scotland. The entries in each section are listed alphabetically.

List of University of Edinburgh people

List of University of Edinburgh people

This is a list of notable graduates as well as non-graduate former students, academic staff, and university officials of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. It also includes those who may be considered alumni by extension, having studied at institutions that later merged with the University of Edinburgh. The university is associated with 19 Nobel Prize laureates, three Turing Award winners, an Abel Prize laureate and Fields Medallist, four Pulitzer Prize winners, three Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom, and several Olympic gold medallists.

Scottish Enlightenment

Scottish Enlightenment

The Scottish Enlightenment was the period in 18th- and early-19th-century Scotland characterised by an outpouring of intellectual and scientific accomplishments. By the eighteenth century, Scotland had a network of parish schools in the Scottish Lowlands and five universities. The Enlightenment culture was based on close readings of new books, and intense discussions which took place daily at such intellectual gathering places in Edinburgh as The Select Society and, later, The Poker Club, as well as within Scotland's ancient universities.

Adam Smith

Adam Smith

Adam Smith was a Scottish economist and philosopher who was a pioneer in the thinking of political economy and key figure during the Scottish Enlightenment. Seen by some as "The Father of Economics" or "The Father of Capitalism", he wrote two classic works, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776). The latter, often abbreviated as The Wealth of Nations, is considered his magnum opus and the first modern work that treats economics as a comprehensive system and as an academic discipline. Smith refuses to explain the distribution of wealth and power in terms of God's will and instead appeals to natural, political, social, economic and technological factors and the interactions between them. Among other economic theories, the work introduced Smith's idea of absolute advantage.

Kirkcaldy

Kirkcaldy

Kirkcaldy is a town and former royal burgh in Fife, on the east coast of Scotland. It is about 11.6 miles (19 km) north of Edinburgh and 27.6 miles (44 km) south-southwest of Dundee. The town had a recorded population of 49,460 in 2011, making it Fife's second-largest settlement and the 12th most populous settlement in Scotland.

James Boswell

James Boswell

James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck, was a Scottish biographer, diarist, and lawyer, born in Edinburgh. He is best known for his biography of his friend and older contemporary the English writer Samuel Johnson, which is commonly said to be the greatest biography written in the English language. A great mass of Boswell's diaries, letters and private papers were recovered from the 1920s to the 1950s, and their ongoing publication by Yale University has transformed his reputation.

Life of Samuel Johnson

Life of Samuel Johnson

The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1791) by James Boswell is a biography of English writer Dr. Samuel Johnson. The work was from the beginning a critical and popular success, and represents a landmark in the development of the modern genre of biography. It is notable for its extensive reports of Johnson's conversation. Many have called it the greatest biography written in English, but some modern critics object that the work cannot be considered a proper biography. Boswell's personal acquaintance with his subject began in 1763, when Johnson was 54 years old, and Boswell covered the entirety of Johnson's life by means of additional research. The biography takes many critical liberties with Johnson's life, as Boswell makes various changes to Johnson's quotations and even censors many comments. Nonetheless, the book is valued as both an important source of information on Johnson and his times, as well as an important work of literature.

Rob Roy (novel)

Rob Roy (novel)

Rob Roy (1817) is a historical novel by Walter Scott, one of the Waverley novels. It is probably set in 1715, the year of the first Jacobite uprising, and the social and economic background to that event are an important element in the novel, though it is not treated directly. The depiction of Rob Roy bears little relation to the historical figure: 'there are two Rob Roys. One lived and breathed. The other is a good story, a lively tale set in the past. Both may be accepted as "valid", but they serve different needs and interests.'

Ivanhoe

Ivanhoe

Ivanhoe: A Romance by Walter Scott is a historical novel published in three volumes, in 1819, as one of the Waverley novels. Set in England in the Middle Ages, this novel marked a shift away from Scott’s prior practice of setting stories in Scotland and in the more recent past. Ivanhoe became one of Scott’s best-known and most influential novels.

James Hogg

James Hogg

James Hogg was a Scottish poet, novelist and essayist who wrote in both Scots and English. As a young man he worked as a shepherd and farmhand, and was largely self-educated through reading. He was a friend of many of the great writers of his day, including Sir Walter Scott, of whom he later wrote an unauthorised biography. He became widely known as the "Ettrick Shepherd", a nickname under which some of his works were published, and the character name he was given in the widely read series Noctes Ambrosianae, published in Blackwood's Magazine. He is best known today for his novel The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner. His other works include the long poem The Queen's Wake (1813), his collection of songs Jacobite Relics (1819), and his two novels The Three Perils of Man (1822), and The Three Perils of Woman (1823).

Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer. He is best known for works such as Treasure Island, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Kidnapped and A Child's Garden of Verses.

Kidnapped (novel)

Kidnapped (novel)

Kidnapped is a historical fiction adventure novel by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, written as a boys' novel and first published in the magazine Young Folks from May to July 1886. The novel has attracted the praise and admiration of writers as diverse as Henry James, Jorge Luis Borges, and Hilary Mantel. A sequel, Catriona, was published in 1893.

Twin towns and sister cities

The City of Edinburgh has entered into 14 international twinning arrangements since 1954.^[290] Most of the arrangements are styled as Twin Cities but the agreement with Kraków is designated as a Partner City,^[290] 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.^[290]

City	Since
Munich, Germany	1954
Nice, France	1958[291][292]
Florence, Italy	1964
Dunedin, New Zealand	1974
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada	1977[293]
San Diego, California, United States	1977
Xi'an, China	1985
Segovia, Spain	1985[294]
Kyiv, Ukraine	1989
Aalborg, Denmark	1991[295]
Kyoto Prefecture, Japan	1994
Kathmandu, Nepal	1994
Kraków, Poland	1995[296]
Saint Petersburg, Russia	1995[297][298]
Shenzhen, China	2019[299]

For a list of consulates in Edinburgh, see List of diplomatic missions in Scotland.

Discover more about International relations related topics

List of twin towns and sister cities in Scotland

List of twin towns and sister cities in Scotland

This is a list of places in Scotland which have standing links to local communities in other countries. In most cases, the association, especially when formalised by local government, is known as "town twinning" or "sister cities".

Kraków

Kraków

Kraków, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596 and has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, economic, cultural and artistic life. Cited as one of Europe's most beautiful cities, its Old Town with Wawel Royal Castle was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1978, one of the world's first sites granted the status.

Kyoto Prefecture

Kyoto Prefecture

Kyoto Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Kyoto Prefecture has a population of 2,561,358 and has a geographic area of 4,612 square kilometres (1,781 sq mi). Kyoto Prefecture borders Fukui Prefecture to the northeast, Shiga Prefecture to the east, Mie Prefecture to the southeast, Nara Prefecture and Osaka Prefecture to the south, and Hyōgo Prefecture to the west.

Germany

Germany

Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second-most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated between the Baltic and North seas to the north, and the Alps to the south; it covers an area of 357,022 square kilometres (137,847 sq mi), with a population of over 84 million within its 16 constituent states. Germany borders Denmark to the north, Poland and the Czech Republic to the east, Austria and Switzerland to the south, and France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands to the west. The nation's capital and most populous city is Berlin and its main financial centre is Frankfurt; the largest urban area is the Ruhr.

Munich

Munich

Munich is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Hamburg, and thus the largest which does not constitute its own state, as well as the 11th-largest city in the European Union. The city's metropolitan region is home to 6 million people. Straddling the banks of the River Isar north of the Bavarian Alps, Munich is the seat of the Bavarian administrative region of Upper Bavaria, while being the most densely populated municipality in Germany with 4,500 people per km2. Munich is the second-largest city in the Bavarian dialect area, after the Austrian capital of Vienna.

France

France

France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. It also includes overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans, giving it one of the largest discontiguous exclusive economic zones in the world. Its metropolitan area extends from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean and from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea; overseas territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the North Atlantic, the French West Indies, and many islands in Oceania and the Indian Ocean. Its eighteen integral regions span a combined area of 643,801 km2 (248,573 sq mi) and had a total population of over 68 million as of January 2023. France is a unitary semi-presidential republic with its capital in Paris, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre; other major urban areas include Marseille, Lyon, Toulouse, Lille, Bordeaux, and Nice.

Italy

Italy

Italy, officially the Italian Republic or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern and Western Europe. Located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, it consists of a peninsula delimited by the Alps and surrounded by several islands; its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical region. Italy shares land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia and the enclaved microstates of Vatican City and San Marino. It has a territorial exclave in Switzerland, Campione, and some islands in the African Plate. Italy covers an area of 301,230 km2 (116,310 sq mi), with a population of about 60 million. It is the third-most populous member state of the European Union, the sixth-most populous country in Europe, and the tenth-largest country in the continent by land area. Italy's capital and largest city is Rome.

Florence

Florence

Florence is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.

New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island and the South Island —and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island country by area, covering 268,021 square kilometres (103,500 sq mi). New Zealand is about 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi) east of Australia across the Tasman Sea and 1,000 kilometres (600 mi) south of the islands of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga. The country's varied topography and sharp mountain peaks, including the Southern Alps, owe much to tectonic uplift and volcanic eruptions. New Zealand's capital city is Wellington, and its most populous city is Auckland.

Dunedin

Dunedin

Dunedin is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from Dùn Èideann, the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. The city has a rich Scottish, Chinese and Māori heritage.

Canada

Canada

Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's second-largest country by total area, with the world's longest coastline. It is characterized by a wide range of both meteorologic and geological regions. The country is sparsely inhabited, with most residing south of the 55th parallel in urban areas. Canada's capital is Ottawa and its three largest metropolitan areas are Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.

China

China

China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and borders fourteen countries by land, the most of any country in the world, tied with Russia. With an area of approximately 9.6 million square kilometres (3,700,000 sq mi), it is the world's third largest country by total land area. The country consists of 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four municipalities, and two special administrative regions. The national capital is Beijing, and the most populous city and largest financial center is Shanghai.