Portal:Edinburgh
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Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. It is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh had a population of 506,520 in 2020, making it the second-most-populous city in Scotland (behind Glasgow) and the seventh-most-populous in the United Kingdom. The wider metropolitan area had a population of 912,490 in the same year.
Recognised as the capital of Scotland since at least the 15th century, Edinburgh is the seat of the Scottish Government, the Scottish Parliament, the highest courts in Scotland, and the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the official residence of the British monarch in Scotland. It is also the annual venue of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. The city has long been a centre of education, particularly in the fields of medicine, Scottish law, literature, philosophy, the sciences and engineering. The University of Edinburgh was founded in 1582 and is now one of four universities in the city. The financial centre of Scotland, Edinburgh was ranked as the second-largest financial centre in the United Kingdom, the fourth-largest in Europe, and the thirteenth-largest in the world in the Global Financial Centres Index in 2020.
The city is a cultural centre, and is the home of institutions including the National Museum of Scotland, the National Library of Scotland, and the Scottish National Gallery. The city is also known for the Edinburgh International Festival and the Fringe, the latter being the world's largest annual international arts festival. Historic sites in Edinburgh include Edinburgh Castle, the Palace of Holyroodhouse, St Giles' Cathedral, Greyfriars Kirk, Canongate Kirk and the extensive Georgian New Town built in the 18th and 19th centuries. The Old Town and the New Town are together listed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, and the site has been managed by Edinburgh World Heritage since 1999. The city's historical and cultural attractions have made it Britain's second-most-visited tourist destination, attracting 5.3 million visits, including 2.4 million from overseas, in 2023. (Full article...)
Selected location article
The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) is a scientific centre for the study of plants, their diversity and conservation, as well as a popular visitor attraction. Founded in 1670 as a physic garden to grow medicinal plants, today it occupies four sites across Scotland—Edinburgh, Dawyck, Logan and Benmore—each with its own specialist collection. The RBGE's living collection consists of more than 13,302 plant species (34,422 accessions), whilst the herbarium contains in excess of 3 million preserved specimens.
The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh is an executive non-departmental public body of the Scottish Government. The Edinburgh site is the main garden and the headquarters of the public body, which is led by Regius Keeper Dr Julia Knights. (Full article...)
Selected images
View over Edinburgh
Jenners Department Store, the oldest department store in Scotland
The Castle Rock
Architecture in Edinburgh
The National Monument of Scotland (right) and Nelson Monument (left)
View looking west along George Street
The BT building in Edinburgh Park
St Giles' Cathedral, the principal place of worship of the Church of Scotland in Edinburgh
Holyrood Palace, the official residence of the British monarch in Scotland
The Princes Street Gardens, the best known park in Edinburgh
David Hume, Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist born in Edinburgh in 1711
The Governor's House
The High Street, part of the Royal Mile
The Dean Gallery, part of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art
The ruins of Holyrood Abbey
Ratho Park Golf Club
Scottish baronial-style turrets on Victorian tenements in St. Mary's Street
The Band of the Royal Regiment of Scotland in Edinburgh Castle
Two Edinburgh Trams seen at the West End - Princes Street stop
Edinburgh (from Salisbury Crags) by William Crozier, a painter associated with The Edinburgh School
Queensferry Crossing road bridge
City Observatory, the Gothic Tower
Sir Walter Scott
Fountain at Holyrood Palace
Charlotte Square, a garden square in the New Town
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Selected transportation article
The Edinburgh City Bypass (A720) skirts the southern fringes of the city. The road was constructed between 1981 and 1990 and opened to motorists in sections. The road is one of the main trunk roads in east central Scotland linking vitally important routes such as the M8, the main route west to Glasgow, the A1, one of the two primary routes south from Scotland to England, and the M9 to Stirling. The City Bypass is linked by the A902 to the A90 leading north out of the city.
Edinburgh itself is the hub of the A-road numbering system within Scotland, and many radial routes lead into and out of the city. Routes radiating from Edinburgh are as follows (in a clockwise direction): (Full article...)
Selected area article
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Greenbank is a residential district of south Edinburgh, Scotland. It is situated between the districts of Morningside and Oxgangs, i.e. slightly to the south-west of the heart of Morningside. The area was originally developed in the late 19th century, being completed in the early 1930s. The former City Hospital closed in 1999, after which modern flats and houses were constructed on Greenbank Drive, some of which incorporate parts of the Victorian contagious diseases isolation hospital. The area of the new development has become known as Greenbank Village. (Full article...)
Selected environment article
Castle Rock (Scottish Gaelic: Creag a' Chaisteil, Scottish Gaelic pronunciation: [ˈkʰʲɾʲekˈaˈxaʃtʰʲɪl]) is a volcanic plug in the middle of Edinburgh upon which Edinburgh Castle sits. The rock is estimated to have formed some 350 million years ago during the early Carboniferous period. It is the remains of a volcanic pipe which cut through the surrounding sedimentary rock, before cooling to form very hard dolerite, a coarser-grained equivalent of basalt. Subsequent glacial erosion was resisted more by the dolerite, which protected the softer rock to the east, leaving a crag and tail formation.
The summit of the castle rock is 130 m (430 ft) above sea level, with rocky cliffs to the south, west and north, rearing up to 80 m (260 ft) from the surrounding landscape. This means that the only readily accessible route to the castle lies to the east, where the ridge slopes more gently. The defensive advantage of such a site is clear, but the geology of the rock also presents difficulties, since basalt is an extremely poor aquifer. Providing water to the Upper Ward of the castle was problematic, and despite the sinking of a 28 m (92 ft) deep well, the water supply often ran out during drought or siege, for example during the Lang Siege of 1573. (Full article...)
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Selected arts article
Scottish Opera is the national opera company of Scotland, and one of the five national performing arts companies of Scotland. Founded in 1962 and based in Glasgow, it is the largest performing arts organisation in Scotland. (Full article...)
Selected education article
Edinburgh Napier University (Scottish Gaelic: Oilthigh Napier Dhùn Èideann) 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.
The university is based around its three main Edinburgh campuses: Merchiston, Craiglockhart, and Sighthill. It has over 21,000 students, including those on-campus in Scotland and others studying transnational programmes abroad and online. In 2018 this included nearly 9,500 international and EU students, from more than 140 nations worldwide. (Full article...)
Selected sports article
The Edinburgh Marathon is an annual marathon event, governed by Scottish Athletics and run in Scotland over the traditional distance of 42.195 kilometres (26.219 mi). The first marathon event in Edinburgh was in 1982. Further marathons were held in Edinburgh in 1986 and 1999. Since 2003 the Edinburgh Marathon Festival has been held each year, usually in May. The current route begins in the city centre, moves out of Edinburgh into East Lothian, finishing at Musselburgh, East Lothian. (Full article...)
Selected religion article
The Church of Scotland (CoS; Scots: The Kirk o Scotland; Scottish Gaelic: Eaglais na h-Alba) is a Reformed denomination of Christianity that holds the status of the national and established church of Scotland. It is one of the country's larger denominations, having 229,000 members in 2025, or 4% of the Scottish population. In the 2022 census, 1,108,796 people, or 20% of the Scottish population, claimed affiliation with the church.
The Church of Scotland is Presbyterian in structure, meaning that is governed by presbyters or elders, selected from the body of the church. There is no one person who acts as the head of the faith, as the church believes that role is the "Lord God's". It is known familiarly as "the Kirk", this being the Scots equivalent of "church". The Church of Scotland was principally shaped by John Knox in the Reformation of 1560, when it split from the Church of Rome and established itself as a church in the Reformed tradition. (Full article...)
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