Edinburgh ( , or ; ) is the
capital city of Scotland
.
It is the
second largest city in Scotland and the
seventh-most
populous in the United Kingdom
. The City of Edinburgh Council is one of
Scotland's 32
local
government council
areas.
Located in
the south-east of Scotland, Edinburgh lies on the east coast of the
Central Belt, along the Firth of Forth
, near the North Sea
. Owing to its spectacular, rugged setting
and vast collection of Medieval and
Georgian architecture, including
numerous stone
tenements, it is often
considered one of the most
picturesque
cities in Europe.
The city forms part of the
City of Edinburgh council area; the
city council area includes urban
Edinburgh and a 30-square-mile (78 km
2) rural
area.
Edinburgh
is the seat of the Scottish Parliament
. The city was one of the major centres of
the Enlightenment, led by the
University of Edinburgh,
earning it the nickname
Athens of the North.
The Old
Town
and New Town
districts of Edinburgh were listed as a UNESCO
World Heritage
Site in 1995. There are over 4,500
listed buildings within the city. In the
2008 mid year population estimates, Edinburgh had a total resident
population of 471,650. Edinburgh is well-known for the annual
Edinburgh Festival, a collection
of official and independent festivals held annually over about four
weeks from early August. The number of visitors attracted to
Edinburgh for the Festival is roughly equal to the settled
population of the city. The most famous of these events are the
Edinburgh Fringe (the largest
performing arts festival in the world), the
Edinburgh International
Festival, the
Edinburgh
Military Tattoo, and the
Edinburgh International
Book Festival.
Other notable events include the
Hogmanay
street party (31 December),
Burns Night
(25 January),
St. Andrew's Day (30
November), and the
Beltane Fire
Festival (30 April).
The city attracts 1 million overseas visitors a year, making it the
second most visited tourist destination in the United Kingdom,
after London.
In a 2009 YouGov poll, Edinburgh was voted the "most desirable city
in which to live in the UK".
History
Humans
have settled the Edinburgh area from at least the Bronze Age, leaving traces of primitive stone
settlements at Holyrood, Craiglockhart Hill and the Pentland Hills
for example. Influenced through the Iron Age by Hallstatt
and La
Tene
Celtic cultures from central
Europe, by the time the Romans arrived in Lothian at the beginning
of the 1st millennium AD, they discovered a Celtic, Brythonic tribe whose name they recorded as
Votadini, likely to be a Latin version of
the name they called themselves.
The city's name is most likely
Celtic
(
P-Celtic,
Brythonic) in origin, possibly Cumbric or a
variation of it. It is first mentioned in the late 6th century in
the heroic poems of the
Gododdin (a later
Brythonic form of '
Votadini'), named as
both
Eidyn and
Din Eidyn and also described as
Eidyn ysgor or
Eidyn gaer, i.e. the stronghold or
fort of Eidyn. All these forms use 'Eidyn' as a proper name, and
the same is true for later translations made by invading
Bernicians and
Scots, typified in a note from the 9th
century's
Life of St Monenna, 'Dunedene, which is in
English, Edineburg'.
This Celtic root is contrary to the often-cited theory that the
city was named after the Bernician King of Northumbria, Edwin, who
was killed in AD 633. However it is extremely unlikely that Edwin
had any connection with Edinburgh, despite the expansion of his
kingdom during his reign. Although centuries later some, such as
Symeon of Durham in the 12th century, referred to the city in terms
such as
Edwinesburch, this hypothesis has been largely
discredited as 'folk-etymology', the invention of a connection
where there is none, most likely for political reasons. Indeed
rigorous etymological research supports the Celtic route
theory.
Nevertheless there is no doubt that the Angles of Northumbria did
have significant influence over south east Scotland, notably from
AD 638 when it appears the
Gododdin
stronghold of Din Eidyn was sieged. Though far from exclusive
(
cf Picts and
Scots), this influence continued over three centuries.
It was not until c. AD 950 when, during the reign of Indulf, son of
Constantine, the city, referred to at this time in the
Pictish Chronicle as 'oppidum Eden', fell to the Scots
and finally remained under their jurisdiction.
It is worth noting that during this period of
Germanic influence in south east Scotland,
when the city's name gained its Germanic suffix, 'burgh', the seeds
for the language we know today as
Scots were sown.
By the 12th century Edinburgh was well established, founded upon
the famous castle rock, the volcanic
crag
and tail geological feature shaped by 2 million years of
glacial activity.
Flourishing alongside it to the east, another
community developed around the Abbey of Holyrood
, known as Canongate
. In the 13th century these both became
Royal Burghs and through the late
medieval period Edinburgh grew quickly.
In 1492
King James IV of Scotland
undertook to move the Royal Court from
Stirling
to Holyrood,
making Edinburgh the national capital.
Edinburgh continued to flourish economically and culturally through
the
Renaissance period and was at the
centre of the 16th century
Scottish
Reformation and the
Wars of the
Covenant a hundred years later.
In 1603
King James VI of Scotland
succeeded to the English and
Irish thrones, fulfilling his ambition to
create a united kingdom under the Stewart Monarchy. Although he
retained the
Parliament of
Scotland in Edinburgh, he marched to London to rule from his
throne there. He ordered that every public building in the land
should bear his family's emblem, the red lion rampant, and to this
day the most common name for a public house in Britain is the Red
Lion.
In 1639, disputes between the
Presbyterian Covenanters and the
Anglican Church led to the
Bishops' Wars, a prelude to the
English Civil War, and the brief
occupation of Edinburgh by the
Commonwealth forces of
Oliver Cromwell.
In 17th-century Edinburgh, a defensive wall, built in the 16th
century, largely as protection against English invasion following
James IV's defeat at Flodden (hence it's moniker, the Flodden Wall)
still defined the boundaries of the city . Due to the restricted
land area available for development, the houses increased in height
instead. Buildings of 11 stories were common, and there are records
of buildings as high as 14 stories, an early version of the
modern-day skyscraper. Many of the stone-built structures can still
be seen today in the Old Town.
In 1707
the Act of Union was ratified by a
narrow margin in the Scottish Parliament, however many Scots had opposed it and the people
of Edinburgh rioted at the news. It would be almost 300
years before the Parliament was reinstated.
From early times, and certainly from the 14th century, Edinburgh
(like other royal burghs of Scotland) used armorial devices in many
ways, including on seals. However in 1732, the ‘achievement’ or
‘coat of arms’ was formally granted by the Lord Lyon King of Arms.
These arms were used by Edinburgh Town Council until the
reorganisation of local government in Scotland in May 1975, when it
was succeeded by the City of Edinburgh District Council and a new
coat of arms, based on the earlier one, was granted. In 1996,
further local government reorganisation resulted in the formation
of the City of Edinburgh Council, and again the coat of arms was
updated.
During the
Jacobite rising of 1745,
Edinburgh was briefly occupied by Jacobite forces before their
march into England.
An 1802 illustration of Edinburgh from
the west.
However following their ultimate defeat at Culloden, there was a
period of reprisals and pacification, largely directed at the
Catholic Highlanders.
In Edinburgh the Hanoverian monarch
attempted to gain favour by supporting new developments to the
north of the castle, naming streets in honour of the King and his
family; George Street, Frederick Street, Hanover Street and
Princes
Street
, named in honour of George IV's two
sons.
Edinburgh is noted for its fine architecture, and the New Town for
its Georgian architecture in particular.
Following the controversial Act of Union in 1707, Scotland was both
galvanised by a desire to retain it's national identity and culture
and quick to recognise the opportunities now presented by access to
formerly guarded English international trading routes. These
factors and others contributed to the blossoming of the Scottish
Enlightenment during the second half of the 18th century, arguably
Edinburgh's most successful period. The city was at the heart of it
and renowned throughout Europe at this time, as a hotbed of talent
and ideas and a beacon for progress. Celebrities from across the
continent would be seen in the city streets, among them famous
Scots such as
David Hume,
Walter Scott,
Robert
Adam,
David Wilkie,
Robert Burns,
James
Hutton and
Adam Smith. Edinburgh
became a major cultural centre, earning it the nickname
Athens
of the North because of the
Greco-Roman style of the
New
Town's architecture, as well as the rise of the Scottish
intellectual elite who were increasingly leading both Scottish and
European intellectual thought.
Edinburgh today
In the
19th century, Edinburgh, like many cities, industrialised, but did
not grow as fast as Scotland's second city, Glasgow
, which replaced it as the largest city in the
country, benefitting greatly at the height of the British
Empire.
Following two World Wars and the dismantling of the British Empire,
the second half of the 20th century saw much civil unrest
throughout Scotland and including in Edinburgh. However in 1992
Edinburgh hosted the European Union Treaty Summit and the city once
again had a taste of being a
bona fide national capital.
In 1997 it was agreed the Scottish Parliament would sit again and
in 1999 it did. With the election of an
SNP Scottish Government in 2007 there is a
sign that Scots are seriously considering the reinstatement of full
sovereignty to their Parliament. However, independence or not, the
Parliament alone has given new impetus to the city where it
belongs.
Nicknames
The city is affectionately nicknamed
Auld Reekie (
Scots for
Old Smoky), because when
buildings were heated by
coal and wood fires,
chimneys would spew thick columns of smoke into the air. The
colloquial pronunciation "Embra" or "Embro" has also been used as
in
Robert Garioch's
Embro to the
Ploy
Some have called Edinburgh the
Athens of the North. It is
also known by several Latin names;
Aneda or
Edina. The adjectival form of the latter,
Edinensis, can be seen inscribed on many educational
buildings.
Edinburgh has also been known as
Dunedin, deriving from
the
Scottish Gaelic,
Dùn
Èideann.
Dunedin, New Zealand
, was originally called "New Edinburgh" and is still
nicknamed the "Edinburgh of the South". The Scots poets
Robert Burns and
Robert Fergusson sometimes used the city's
Latin name,
Edina.
Ben Jonson
described it as
Britain's other eye, and
Sir Walter Scott referred to the city as
yon Empress of the North. Robert Louis Stevenson, also a
son of the city, wrote, 'Edinburgh is what Paris ought to be.'
centre
Areas
Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, is divided into areas that generally encompass a
park (sometimes known as "links"), a
main local street (i.e. street of local retail shops), a high
street (the historic main street, not always the same as the main
local street, such as in Corstorphine) and residential
buildings. In Edinburgh many residences are tenements,
although the more southern and western parts of the city have
traditionally been more affluent and have a greater number of
detached and semi-detached
villas.
The
historic centre of Edinburgh is divided into two by the broad green
swath of Princes
Street Gardens
. To the south the view is dominated by
Edinburgh
Castle
, perched atop the extinct volcanic crag, and the
long sweep of the Old Town trailing after it along the ridge.
To the
north lies Princes
Street and the New Town
. The gardens were begun in 1816 on bogland which had once been the Nor Loch
.
To the immediate west of the castle lies the financial district,
housing insurance and banking buildings.
Probably the most
noticeable building here is the circular sandstone building that is
the Edinburgh International Conference
Centre
.
Old Town
looking up The Royal Mile
The Old Town has preserved its
medieval
plan and many
Reformation-era
buildings. One end is closed by the castle and the main artery, the
Royal Mile, leads away from it; minor
streets (called
closes or
wynds) lead downhill on
either side of the main spine in a herringbone pattern. Large
squares mark the location of markets or surround public buildings
such as
St. Giles' Cathedral
and the
Law Courts.
Other notable places
nearby include the Royal Museum of Scotland
, Surgeons' Hall and McEwan Hall. The street
layout is typical of the old quarters of many northern European
cities, and where the castle perches on top of a rocky crag (the
remnants of an extinct volcano) the Royal Mile runs down the crest
of a ridge from it.Due to space restrictions imposed by the
narrowness of the "tail", 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 1500s onwards with
ten and eleven stories being typical and one even reaching fourteen
stories. Additionally, numerous vaults below street level were
inhabited to accommodate the influx of (mainly Irish) immigrants
during the
Industrial
Revolution. These continue to fuel legends of an
underground city to this day.
Today there are tours
of Edinburgh which take you into the underground city, Edinburgh
Vaults
.
New Town
The New Town was an 18th century solution to the problem of an
increasingly crowded Old Town.The city had remained incredibly
compact, confined to the ridge running down from the castle.In 1766
a competition to design the New Town was won by
James Craig, a 22-year-old
architect. The plan that was built created a rigid, ordered grid,
which fitted well with
enlightenment ideas of rationality.
The
principal street was to be George Street
, which follows the natural ridge to the north of
the Old Town. Either side of it are the other main streets
of Princes
Street and Queen Street. Princes Street has since
become the main shopping street in Edinburgh, and few
Georgian buildings survive on it.
Linking these streets were a series of perpendicular streets.
At the
east and west ends are St. Andrew Square
and Charlotte Square
respectively. The latter was designed by
Robert Adam and is often considered one
of the finest Georgian squares in the world.
Bute House
, the official residence of the First Minister of Scotland, is on
the north side of Charlotte Square.Sitting in the
glen between the Old and New Towns was the Nor' Loch,
which had been both the city's water supply and place for dumping
sewage. By the 1820s it was drained.
Some
plans show that a canal was intended , but
Princes
Street Gardens were created instead. Excess soil from the
construction of the buildings was dumped into the loch, creating what is now The Mound
. In the mid-19th century the National
Gallery of Scotland
and Royal Scottish Academy
Building
were built on The Mound, and tunnels to Waverley
Station
driven through it.The New Town was so
successful that it was extended greatly. The grid pattern was not
maintained, but rather a more picturesque layout was created. Today
the New Town is considered by many to be one of the finest examples
of
Georgian architecture and
planning in the world.
South side
A popular
residential part of the city is its south side, comprising a number
of areas including St Leonards, Marchmont
, Newington
, Sciennes
, The Grange
, Edinburgh "South side" is broadly analogous to the
area covered by the Burgh
Muir
, and grew in popularity as a residential area
following the opening of the South Bridge
. These areas are particularly popular with
families (many well-regarded state and private schools are located
here), students (the central University of Edinburgh campus is
based around George Square just north of Marchmont and the
Meadows
, and Napier
University has major campuses around Merchiston &
Morningside), and with festival-goers.These areas are also
the subject of fictional work:
Ian
Rankin's
Inspector Rebus lives
in Marchmont and worked in St Leonards; and Morningside is the home
of
Muriel Spark's Miss Jean
Brodie.Today, the literary connection continues, with the area
being home to the authors
J. K. Rowling,
Ian Rankin, and
Alexander McCall Smith.
Leith
Leith is the port of Edinburgh. It still retains a separate
identity from Edinburgh, and it was a matter of great resentment
when, in 1920, the
burgh of Leith was merged
into the
county of Edinburgh.
Even today the parliamentary seat is known as 'Edinburgh North
and Leith'.
With the redevelopment of Leith, Edinburgh
has gained the business of a number of cruise liner companies which now provide
cruises to Norway
, Sweden
, Denmark
, Germany and the Netherlands. Leith also has the
Royal Yacht
Britannia
, berthed behind the Ocean
Terminal
and Easter
Road
, the home ground of Hibernian.
Geography and climate
Bounded
by the Firth of
Forth to the north and the Pentland Hills, which skirt the periphery of the city to the
south, Edinburgh lies in the eastern portion of the Central
Lowlands
of Scotland. The city sprawls over a
landscape which is the product of early volcanic activity and later
periods of intensive glaciation. Igneous activity between 350 and
400 million years ago, coupled with
faulting led to the dispersion of tough
basalt volcanic
plugs, which predominate over much of the area. One such
example is
Castle Rock which
forced the advancing icepack to divide, sheltering the softer rock
and forming a mile-long tail of material to the east, creating a
distinctive
crag and tail formation.
Glacial
erosion on the northern side of the crag gouged a large valley
resulting in the now drained Nor Loch. This structure, along with a ravine to the
south, formed an ideal natural
fortress
which Edinburgh Castle was built upon.
Similarly, Arthur's
Seat
is the remains of a volcano system dating from the
Carboniferous period, which was
eroded by a glacier moving from west to east
during the ice age. 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. This process formed
the distinctive
Salisbury Crags,
which formed a series of
teschenite cliffs located between
Arthur's Seat and the city centre.
The residential areas of Marchmont and Bruntsfield
are built along a series of drumlin ridges located south of the city centre
which were deposited as the
glacier receded.
Other
viewpoints in the city such as Calton Hill
and Corstorphine Hill
are similar products of glacial erosion.
The
Braid
Hills
and Blackford Hill
are a series of small summits to the south west of
the city commanding expansive views over the urban area of
Edinburgh and northwards to the Forth.
Edinburgh
is drained by the Water of
Leith
, which finds its source at the Harperrig
Reservoir
in the Pentland Hills and runs for 29 km (18
miles) through the south and west of the city, emptying into the
Firth of Forth at Leith. The nearest the river gets to the city
centre is at Dean
Village
on the edge of the New Town, where a deep gorge is
spanned by the Dean Bridge, designed by Thomas Telford and built in 1832 for the road
to Queensferry
. The Water of Leith Walkway
is a mixed use trail that
follows the river for 19.6 km (12.2 miles) from Balerno
to Leith.
Designated in 1957, Edinburgh is ringed by a
green belt stretching from Dalmeny
in the west to Prestongrange in the east. With an
average width of 3.2 km (2 miles) the principal objective of
the green belt was to contain the outward expansion of Edinburgh
and to prevent the agglomeration of urban areas.
Expansion within the
green belt is strictly controlled but developments such as
Edinburgh Airport and the Royal Highland Showground at Ingliston
are located within the zone. Similarly, urban
villages such as Juniper
Green
and Balerno sit on green belt land. One feature of the
green belt in Edinburgh is the inclusion of parcels of land within
the city which are designated as green belt even though they do not
adjoin the main peripheral ring.
Examples of these independent wedges of
green belt include Holyrood
Park
and Corstorphine Hill.
Like much of the rest of Scotland, Edinburgh has a
temperate,
maritime
climate which is relatively mild despite its northerly
latitude.
Winters are especially mild, with daytime
temperatures rarely falling below freezing, and compare favourably
with places such as Moscow
, Labrador and Newfoundland
which lie in similar latitudes. Summer
temperatures are normally moderate, with daily upper maxima rarely
exceeding 22 °C. The highest temperature ever recorded in the city
was 31.4°C on 4 August 1975. The proximity of the city to the sea
mitigates any large variations in temperature or extremes of
climate.
Given Edinburgh's position between the coast
and hills, it is renowned as a windy city, with the prevailing wind
direction coming from the south-west which is associated with warm,
unstable air from the Gulf Stream that
can give rise to rainfall - although considerably less than cities
to the west, such as Glasgow. Rainfall is distributed fairly evenly
throughout the year. Winds from an easterly direction are usually
drier but colder. Vigorous Atlantic depressions, known as
European windstorms, can affect the city
between October and May.
Demography
| Edinburgh compared |
| UK Census
2001 |
Edinburgh |
Lothian |
Scotland |
| Total population |
448,624 |
778,367 |
5,062,011 |
| Population Growth 1991–2001 |
7.1% |
7.2% |
1.3% |
| White |
95.9% |
97.2% |
98.0% |
| Asian |
2.6% |
1.6% |
1.3% |
| Under 16 years old |
16.3% |
18.6% |
19.2% |
| Over 65 years old |
15.4% |
14.8% |
16.0% |
| Christian |
54.8% |
58.1% |
65.1% |
| Muslim |
1.5% |
1.1% |
0.8% |
At the
United Kingdom Census
2001, Edinburgh had a population of 448,624, a rise of 7.1% on
1991. Estimates in 2008 placed the total resident population at
471,650 split between 227,922 males and 243,728 females.
This
makes Edinburgh the second largest city in Scotland after Glasgow. According to the European Statistical
agency,
Eurostat, Edinburgh sits at the
heart of a
Larger Urban Zone
covering 665 square miles (1,724 km
2) with a
population of 778,000.
Edinburgh has a higher proportion of those aged between 16 and 24
than the Scottish average, but has a lower proportion of those
classified as elderly or pre-school. Over 95% of Edinburgh
respondents classed their ethnicity as White in 2001, with those
identifying as being Indian and Chinese at 1.6% and 0.8% of the
population respectively.
In 2001, 22% of the population were born
outside Scotland with the largest group of immigrants coming from
England
at 12.1%. Since the 2004 enlargement of the
European Union, a large number of migrants from the accession
states such as Poland
, Lithuania
and Latvia
have
settled in the city, with many working in the service industry.
There is evidence of human habitation on
Castle Rock from as early as 3,000
years ago. A census conducted by the Edinburgh presbytery in 1592
estimated a population of 8,000 scattered equally north and south
of the High Street which runs down the spine of the ridge leading
from the Castle. In the 18th and 19th Centuries, the population
began to expand rapidly, rising from 49,000 in 1751 to 136,000 in
1831 primarily due to rural out-migration.
As the population
swelled, overcrowding problems in the Old Town, particularly in the
cramped tenements that lined the present
day Royal Mile and Cowgate
, were exacerbated. Sanitary problems and
disease were rife. The construction of
James Craig's masterplanned New Town
from 1766 onwards witnessed the migration of the professional
classes from the Old Town to the lower density, higher quality
surroundings taking shape on land to the north.
Expansion southwards
from the Royal Mile/Cowgate axis of the Old Town saw more tenements
being built in the 19th Century, giving rise to present day areas
such as Marchmont, Newington and Bruntsfield.
Early
20th Century population growth coincided with lower density
suburban development in areas such as Gilmerton
, Liberton
and South
Gyle
. 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 live in
tenements or high rise flats compared to the Scottish average of
33.5%.
Throughout the early to mid 20th Century
many new estates were built in areas such as Craigmillar
, Niddrie
, Pilton, Muirhouse
, Piershill
and Sighthill
, linked to slum clearances in the Old
Town.
There is
a green belt which separates Edinburgh from surroundings towns such
as Bonnyrigg
, Loanhead
and Dalkeith
to the south, Danderhall
and Musselburgh
to the east and Broxburn
and Livingston to the west.
Culture
Festivals
Culturally, Edinburgh is best known for the
Edinburgh Festival, although this is in
fact a series of separate events, which run from the end of July
until early September each year. The longest established festival
is the
Edinburgh
International Festival, which first ran in 1947. The
International Festival centres on a programme of high-profile
theatre productions and classical music performances, featuring
international directors, conductors, theatre companies and
orchestras.
The International Festival has since been taken over in both size
and popularity by the
Edinburgh
Fringe. What began as a programme of marginal acts has become
the largest arts festival in the world, with 1867 different shows
being staged in 2006, in 261 venues. Comedy is now one of the
mainstays of the Fringe, with numerous notable comedians getting
their 'break' here, often through receipt of the
Perrier Award.
In 2008 the largest comedy venues on the
Edinburgh Fringe launched as a festival
within a festival, labelled the
Edinburgh Comedy Festival. Already
at its inception it was the largest comedy festival in the
world.Alongside these major festivals, there is also the Edinburgh
Art Festival,
Edinburgh International
Film Festival (moved to June from 2008), the Edinburgh Jazz and
Blues Festival, and the
Edinburgh International
Book Festival.
The Edge
Festival (formerly known as T on the Fringe), a popular music
offshoot of the Fringe, began in 2000, replacing the smaller Flux
and Planet Pop series of shows.
Running concurrently with the summer festivals, the
Edinburgh Military Tattoo occupies
the Castle Esplanade every night, with massed
pipers and fireworks.
The
Edinburgh
International Science Festival is held annually in April and is
one of the most popular science festivals in the world.
Celebrations
Equally famous is the annual
Hogmanay
celebration.
Originally simply a street party held on
Princes
Street and the Royal Mile, the
Hogmanay event has been officially organised since 1993. In
1996, over 300,000 people attended, leading to ticketing of the
main street party in later years, with a limit of 100,000 tickets.
Hogmanay now covers four days of processions, concerts and
fireworks, with the actual street party commencing on New Year's
Eve. During the street party Princes Street is accessible by ticket
only, allowing access into Princes Street where there are live
bands playing, food and drink stalls, and a clear view of the
castle and fireworks. Alternative tickets are available for
entrance into the Princes Street Gardens concert and Ceilidh, where
well known artists perform and ticket holders are invited to
participate in traditional Scottish Ceilidh dancing. The event
attracts thousands of people from all over the world.
On the night of 30
April, the Beltane Fire
Festival takes place on Edinburgh's Calton
Hill
. The festival involves a procession
followed by the re-enactment of scenes inspired by
pagan spring fertility celebrations.
Museums and libraries
Edinburgh is home to a large number of museums and libraries, many
of which are national institutions.
These include the Museum of
Scotland
, the Royal
Museum
, the National Library of Scotland
, National War Museum of
Scotland, the Museum of Edinburgh
, Museum
of Childhood and the Royal Society of
Edinburgh.
Literature and philosophy
Edinburgh has a long literary tradition, going back to the
Scottish Enlightenment. Edinburgh's
Enlightenment produced philosopher
David
Hume and the pioneer of political economy,
Adam Smith. Writers such as
James Boswell,
Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle, and Sir
Walter Scott all lived and worked in Edinburgh.
J K Rowling, author of the
Harry Potter novels, is a resident of
Edinburgh.
Edinburgh has also become associated with
the crime novels of Ian Rankin; and the
work of Leith
native
Irvine Welsh, whose novels are mostly
set in the city and are often written in colloquial Scots. Edinburgh is also home to
Alexander McCall Smith and a
number of his book series. Edinburgh has also been declared the
first
UNESCO City of
Literature.
Music, theatre and film
Outside festival season, Edinburgh continues to support a number of
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 programme of
plays. Amateur
theatre companies productions are staged at the Bedlam
Theatre
, Church Hill Theatre, and the King's
Theatre
amongst others. Youth Music Theatre: UK has a
regional office in the city.
The
Usher
Hall
is Edinburgh's premier venue for classical music,
as well as the occasional prestige popular music gig.
Other
halls staging music and theatre include The
Hub
, the Assembly Rooms
and the Queen's Hall. The
Scottish Chamber Orchestra is
based in Edinburgh.
Edinburgh
has two repertory cinemas, the Edinburgh
Filmhouse, and the Cameo
, and the independent Dominion Cinema, as well as
the usual range of multiplex.
Edinburgh has a healthy popular music scene.
Occasional large gigs
are staged at Murrayfield
and Meadowbank
, whilst venues such as the Corn Exchange, HMV
Picture House and the Liquid Room cater for smaller
events.
Edinburgh is also home to a flourishing group of contemporary
composers such as Nigel Osborne, Peter Nelson, Lyell Cresswell,
Haflidi Hallgrimsson, Edward Harper, Robert Crawford, Robert Dow,
and John McLeod whose music is also heard regularly on BBC Radio 3
and throughout the UK.
Edinburgh is also home to several of Scotland's galleries and
organisations dedicated to contemporary visual art. Significant
strands of this infrastructure include: The
Scottish Arts Council, Inverleith
House, Edinburgh College of Art, Talbot Rice Gallery (University of
Edinburgh), The Travelling Gallery, Edinburgh Printmakers, WASPS,
Artlink, Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, Doggerfisher, Stills,
Collective Gallery, Out of the Blue, The Embassy, Magnifitat,
Sleeper, Total Kunst, OneZero, Standby, Portfolio Magazine, MAP
magazine, Edinburgh's One O'Clock Gun Periodical and Product
magazine and the
Edinburgh
Annuale.
Visual arts
Edinburgh is home to Scotland's five
National Galleries as well as
numerous smaller galleries.
The national collection is housed in the
National
Gallery of Scotland, located on the Mound, and now linked to the
Royal Scottish Academy, which
holds regular major exhibitions of painting. The contemporary
collections are shown in the Scottish National Gallery of Modern
Art
, and the nearby Dean Gallery
. The Scottish
National Portrait Gallery
focuses on portraits and
photography.
The council-owned City Arts Centre shows 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.
There are world class private galleries, including: Doggerfisher
and Ingleby Gallery, the latter serving up a constantly challenging
exhibition program of Museum quality work.
Nightlife and shopping
Edinburgh has a large number of pubs, clubs and restaurants.
The
traditional areas were the Grassmarket
, Lothian Road and
surrounding streets, Rose
Street
and its surrounds and the Bridges.
In recent
years George
Street in the New Town has grown in prominence, with a large number of
new, upmarket public houses and nightclubs opening, along with a
number on the parallel Queen
Street. Stockbridge
and the waterfront at Leith are also
increasingly fashionable areas, with a number of pubs, clubs and
restaurants.
The largest
nightclubs are Lava &
Ignite (formerly Cavendish) and City Nightclub, as well as
Edinburgh University's student union, Potterrow. Smaller commercial
venues include Base, Faith, Stereo, and Karma. In recent years
night clubs on George Street such as Opal Lounge, Lulu's, Why Not
and Shanghai have become popular.
The main alternative, indie and rock nights are hosted at The Hive,
Opium and Studio 24. The Liquid Room is currently undergoing a full
re-fit after being damaged by the fire that destroyed an Indian
restaurant which was situated behind it in December 2008. It is
expected to reopen within the year.
The
underground nightclub scene playing music such as techno, house,
electronica, drum & bass and
dubstep has suffered in recent years with
the closure of Wilkie House, The Honeycomb, The Venue, La Belle
Angele (destroyed in the Cowgate fire) and Luna (formerly eGo). Cabaret
Voltaire, The Bongo Club, and The Caves now host the majority of
underground events held in Edinburgh.
There are two dedicated gay clubs in Edinburgh, CC Blooms and GHQ;
several other club venues have LGBT nights.
A fortnightly publication,
The
List, is dedicated to life in Edinburgh and around, and
contains listings of all nightclubs, as well as music, theatrical
and other events.
The List also regularly produces
specialist guides such as its Food and Drink guide and its guide to
the
Edinburgh Festivals.
Princes
Street is the main shopping area in the city centre, with a wide
range of stores from souvenir shops, from chains such as Boots and H&M
and institutions like Jenners
. George Street, north of Princes Street, is
home to a number of upmarket chains and independent stores.
The
St. James
Centre
, at the eastern end of George Street and Princes
Street, hosts a substantial number of national chains including a
large John
Lewis. Multrees Walk
, adjacent to the St. James Centre, is a recent
addition to the city centre, hosting brands such as Louis Vuitton, Emporio Armani, Mulberry and Calvin Klein, with Harvey Nichols anchoring the
development.
Edinburgh also has substantial retail developments outside the city
centre.
These include The Gyle
and Hermiston Gait in the west of the city,
Cameron
Toll
, Straiton Retail Park and Fort Kinnaird
in the south and east, and Ocean
Terminal to the north, on the Leith
waterfront. The Royal Yacht Britannia lies in dock here next to the centre.
Edinburgh Zoo
Edinburgh
Zoo
is a non-profit zoological park located in Corstorphine
. The land lies on Corstorphine
Hill and provides extensive views of the city.
Built in
1913, and owned by the Royal Zoological Society of
Scotland, it receives over 600,000 visitors a year, which makes
it Scotland's second most popular paid-for tourist attraction,
after Edinburgh
Castle. As well as catering to tourists and locals,
the Zoo is involved in many scientific pursuits, such as
captive breeding of endangered animals,
researching into
animal behaviour,
and active participation in various
conservation programs around the
world. The Zoo is the only zoo in Britain to house
polar bears and
koalas, as
well as being the first zoo in the world to house and to breed
penguins.
Sport
Football
Edinburgh has two professional
football clubs -
Hibernian and
Heart of Midlothian. They are known
locally as Hibs and Hearts and both teams currently play in the
Scottish Premier League.
Hibs play
at Easter Road
Stadium, which straddles the former boundary between
Edinburgh and Leith, while
Hearts play at Tynecastle Stadium
in Gorgie
.
Edinburgh was also home to senior sides
St Bernard's, and
Leith Athletic.
Most recently,
Meadowbank Thistle played at Meadowbank Stadium until 1995, when the club moved to Livingston
, becoming Livingston
F.C.. Previously, Meadowbank Thistle had been named
Ferranti Thisle. The
Scottish national team has
occasionally played at Easter Road and Tynecastle.
-league sides include
Spartans and
Edinburgh City, who play in the
East of Scotland League
along with
Civil Service
Strollers F.C.,
Lothian Thistle
F.C.,
Edinburgh
University A.F.C.,
Edinburgh
Athletic F.C.,
Tynecastle F.C.,
Craigroyston F.C. and
Heriot-Watt University F.C..
Edinburgh United F.C. plays in
the
Scottish
Junior Football Association, East Region.
Rugby Union
The Scotland national rugby union team plays at Murrayfield
Stadium, which is owned by the Scottish Rugby Union and is also
used as a venue for other events, including music concerts.
Edinburgh's professional rugby team, Edinburgh Rugby, play in the
Celtic League at Murrayfield. It is the largest capacity stadium in
Scotland. Raeburn Place held the first rugby international game
between Scotland and England. Edinburgh is also home to numerous
smaller rugby teams including The Edinburgh Academicals (who play
at Raeburn Place), The Murrayfield Wanderers and several teams from
the universities in Edinburgh.
Other sports
The
Scottish cricket team, who
represent Scotland at cricket
internationally and in the Friends Provident Trophy, play
their home matches at The Grange
.
The
Edinburgh Capitals are the
latest of a succession of
ice hockey
clubs to represent the Scottish capital. Previously Edinburgh was
represented by the
Murrayfield
Racers and the Edinburgh Racers.
The club play their
home games at the Murrayfield Ice Rink
and are the sole Scottish representative in the
Elite Ice Hockey
League.
The
Edinburgh Diamond
Devils is a baseball club claiming its first Scottish
Championship in 1991 as the "Reivers." 1992 saw the team repeat as
national champions, becoming the first team to do so in league
history and saw the start of the club's first youth team, the
Blue Jays. The name of the club was
changed in 1999.
Edinburgh has also hosted various national and international sports
events including the
World Student
Games, the
1970
British Commonwealth Games, the
1986 Commonwealth Games and the
inaugural 2000 Commonwealth Youth Games.
For the Games in 1970
the city built major Olympic standard
venues and facilities including the Royal
Commonwealth Pool
and the Meadowbank Stadium.
In
American football, the
Scottish Claymores played
WLAF/
NFL Europe games at Murrayfield, including their
World Bowl 96 victory. From 1995 to
1997 they played all their games there, from 1998 to 2000 they
split their home matches between Murrayfield and Glasgow's Hampden
Park, then moved to Glasgow full-time, with one final Murrayfield
appearance in 2002. The city's most successful non-professional
team are the
Edinburgh Wolves who
currently play at Meadowbank Stadium.
The
Edinburgh Marathon has been
held in the city since 2003 with more than 13,000 taking part
annually.
Edinburgh
has a speedway team, the Edinburgh Monarchs, which is currently
based at the Lothian Arena in Armadale, West Lothian
.
Economy
Edinburgh has the strongest economy of any city in the UK outside
London. The strength of Edinburgh's economy is reflected by its
GVA per capita, which was measured
at £28,238 in 2005. The economy of Edinburgh and its hinterland has
recently been announced as one of the fastest growing
city regions in Europe. Education and health,
finance and business services, retailing and tourism are the
largest employers. The economy of Edinburgh is largely based around
the services sector — centred around
banking, financial services, higher education, and
tourism.
Unemployment in Edinburgh is low at 1.9%, which
has been consistently below the Scottish average.Banking has been a part of the
economic life of Edinburgh for over 300 years, with the
establishment of the
Bank of
Scotland by an act of the original
Parliament of Scotland in 1695.
Today,
together with the burgeoning financial services industry, with
particular strengths in insurance and
investment underpinned by the presence of
Edinburgh based firms such as Scottish Widows
and Standard Life
, Edinburgh has emerged as Europe's sixth largest
financial centre. The Royal
Bank of Scotland, which is the fifth largest in the world by
market capitalisation, opened
their new global headquarters at Gogarburn
in the west of the city in October 2005; their
registered office remains in St.
Andrew Square.
Edinburgh Financial District
Manufacturing has never had as strong a
presence in Edinburgh compared with Glasgow; however brewing, publishing, and nowadays electronics have maintained a foothold in the
city. While brewing has been in decline in recent years,
with the closure of the
McEwan's
Brewery in 2005,
Caledonian
Brewery remains as the largest, with
Scottish and Newcastle retaining
their headquarters in the city.
Tourism is an important economic mainstay in
the city.
As a World
Heritage Site, tourists come to visit such historical sites as
Edinburgh
Castle, the Palace of Holyroodhouse
and the Georgian New Town. This is augmented in August of each year
with the presence of the
Edinburgh
Festivals, which bring in large numbers of visitors, generating
in excess of £100m for the Edinburgh economy.
As the centre of Scotland's devolved government, as well as its
legal system, the public sector plays a
central role in the economy of Edinburgh with many departments of
the
Scottish Government located
in the city. Other major employers include
NHS Scotland and
local government
administration.
Governance
Following local government reorganisation in 1996, Edinburgh
constitutes one of the
32
Unitary Authorities of Scotland. Today, the
City of Edinburgh Council is the
administrative body for the local authority and has its powers
stipulated by the
Local Government etc
Act 1994. Like all other unitary and island authorities in
Scotland, the council has powers over most matters of local
administration such as housing, planning,
local transport, parks, economic
development and regeneration. The council is composed of 58 elected
councillors, returned from 17
multi-member electoral wards in
the city. Each ward elects three or four councillors by the
single transferable vote
system, to produce a form of
proportional representation.
Following the
2007 Scottish
Local Elections the incumbent
Labour Party lost majority control of
the council, after 23 years, to a
Liberal Democrat/
SNP coalition.
Since 2007, the council has operated a committee structure, headed
by the
Lord
Provost, who chairs the full council and acts as a figurehead
for the city. The Provost, currently
George
Grubb, also serves as
ex officio the
Lord Lieutenant of the city. A Leader and
Policy & Strategy Committee, appointed by the full council, are
responsible for the day-to-day running of the city administration.
Jenny Dawe has been the Council Leader since May 2007. Councillors
are also appointed to sit on the boards of public bodies such as
Lothian and Borders
Police and the
Forth Estuary Transport
Authority.
In terms
of national governance, Edinburgh is represented in the Scottish
Parliament. For electoral purposes, the city area is
divided between six of the nine
constituencies in the
Lothians
electoral
region. Each constituency elects one
Member of the Scottish
Parliament by the
first past the
post system of election, and the region elects seven
additional MSPs, to produce a form
of proportional representation.
Edinburgh
is also represented in the House of Commons
by 5 Members
of Parliament elected from single member constituencies by the
plurality system. One of
the local constituencies,
Edinburgh
South West, is represented by
Alistair Darling, the current UK
Chancellor of the
Exchequer.
Transport
Edinburgh
Airport
is the principal international gateway to the city,
handling almost 9 million passengers in 2008. In
anticipation of rising passenger numbers, the airport operator
BAA outlined a draft masterplan in 2006
to provide for the expansion of the airfield and terminal building.
The possibility of building a second runway to cope with an
increased number of aircraft movements has also been mooted.
As an important hub on the
East
Coast Main Line, is the primary railway station serving the
city. With more than 14 million passengers per year, the station is
the second busiest in Scotland behind . Waverley serves as the
terminus for trains arriving from and is the departure point for
many
rail services within
Scotland operated by
First
ScotRail.
To the
west of the city centre lies Haymarket railway station
which is an important commuter stop.
Opened in
2003, Edinburgh Park station
serves the adjacent business park located in the
west of the city and the nearby Gogarburn headquarters of the Royal Bank of Scotland.
The
Edinburgh Crossrail connects
Edinburgh Park with Haymarket, Waverley and the suburban stations
of and in the east of the city..
There are also commuter lines to South Gyle and Dalmeny, which serves South Queensferry by the Forth Bridges, and to the south west of the
city out to Wester
Hailes
and Curriehill
Lothian Buses operate the majority of city bus services within the
City and to surrounding suburbs, with the majority of routes
running via Princes
Street. Services further afield operate from the
Edinburgh Bus Station
off St. Andrew Square. Lothian, as the successor company to the
City's
Corporation
Trams, also operates all of the City's branded public
tour bus services, the
night bus network and
airport buses. Lothian's
Mac Tours
subsidiary has one of the largest remaining fleets of ex-London
Routemaster buses in the UK, many
converted to
open
top tour buses. In 2007, the average daily ridership of Lothian
Buses was over 312,000 - a 6% rise on the previous year.
order to tackle
traffic
congestion, Edinburgh is now served by six
park and ride sites on the periphery of the
city at
Sheriffhall,
Ingliston,
Riccarton
,
Inverkeithing
(in
Fife
) and
Newcraighall
.
A new facility at Straiton
opened in October 2008. A
referendum
of Edinburgh residents in February 2005 rejected a proposal to
introduce
congestion
charging in the city.
Edinburgh has been without a tram system since 16 November 1956.
However, following parliamentary approval in 2007, construction
began on a new
Edinburgh tram
network in early 2008, which has lead to major disruption to
transport services. The first stage of the project was expected to
be operational by July 2011 but is unlikely to be working before
the beginning of 2012 .
The first phase will see trams running from
the airport in the west of the city, through the centre of
Edinburgh and down Leith
Walk
to Ocean Terminal and Newhaven
. The next phase of the project will see
trams run from Haymarket through Ravelston
and Craigleith
to Granton
on the waterfront. Future proposals
include; a line going west from the airport to Ratho
and Newbridge
and a line running along the length of the
waterfront.
Education
There are four universities in Edinburgh with over 100,000 students
studying in the city.
Established by Royal Charter in 1583, the
University of Edinburgh is
one of Scotland's ancient universities and is
the fourth oldest in the country after St
Andrews
, Glasgow
and Aberdeen. Originally centred
around Old College
the university expanded to premises on The Mound, the Royal Mile and George Square.
Today,
the King's
Buildings
in the south of the city contain most of the
schools within the College of Science and Engineering.
In 2002,
the medical school
moved to purpose built accommodation adjacent
to the new Edinburgh Royal Infirmary
at Little France
. Edinburgh University has strengths in
medicine, law, engineering, chemistry, physics, English, veterinary
science and informatics.
In the
1960s Heriot-Watt University
and Napier Technical College were
established. Heriot-Watt traces its origins to 1821, when a
school for technical education of the
working classes was opened.
Based in Riccarton to the west of the city, Heriot-Watt specialises in
the disciplines of engineering, business and mathematics.
Napier College was renamed Napier Polytechnic in 1986 and gained
university status in 1992.
Edinburgh Napier University has
campuses in the south and west of the city, including the former
Craiglockhart Hydropathic
and Merchiston Tower
. It is home to the
Screen Academy Scotland.
Further
education colleges in the city include Jewel & Esk College
(incorporating Leith Nautical College founded in 1903), Telford
College
, opened in 1968, and Stevenson College, opened in
1970. The
Scottish
Agricultural College also has a campus in south Edinburgh.
Awarded
university status in January 2007, Queen
Margaret University
was founded in 1875, as The Edinburgh School of
Cookery and Domestic Economy, by Christian Guthrie Wright and
Louisa Stevenson.
Other notable 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 was founded in 1760 - an institution that
became the Edinburgh College of Art
in 1907.
There are 18 nursery, 94 primary and 23 secondary
schools in Edinburgh
administered by the city council.
In addition, the city is home to a large
number of independent,
fee-paying schools including George Heriot's School
, Fettes College
, Merchiston Castle School
, Edinburgh Academy
and Stewart's Melville College
.
Hospitals
Hospitals in Edinburgh include the Royal
Infirmary of Edinburgh
, which includes Edinburgh University Medical
School, and the Western General Hospital
, which includes a large cancer treatment
centre. There is one private hospital, Murrayfield Hospital,
owned by
Spire Healthcare. The
Royal Infirmary is the main Accident & Emergency hospital not
just for Edinburgh but also Midlothian and East Lothian, and is the
headquarters of NHS Lothian, making it a centric focus for
Edinburgh and its hinterland. The
Royal Edinburgh Hospital
specialises in mental health; it is situated in Morningside. The
Royal Hospital for Sick Children is located in Sciennes Road; it is
popularly known as the 'Sick Kids'.
Religious communities
Christianity
The
Church
of Scotland
claims the largest membership of any religious
denomination in Edinburgh. Its most important and historical church
is St Giles' Cathedral; others
include Greyfriars Kirk
, Barclay Church
, Canongate Kirk
and St Andrew's and St George's
Church
. In the south east of the city is the 12th
century Duddingston Kirk
. The Church of Scotland Offices
are located in Edinburgh, as is the Assembly Hall
and New College
on The Mound.
The
Roman Catholic Church also
has a sizeable presence in the city.
Its notable
structures include St Mary's Cathedral
at the top of Leith Walk, the Sacred Heart of
Jesus, St Patrick's, St. Columba's, St.
Peter's and Star of the Sea. The Roman Catholic community in
Edinburgh is part of the
Archdiocese of St
Andrews and Edinburgh, which is led by Keith
Cardinal O'Brien, considered to be the
leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland.
The
Free Church of
Scotland (Reformed and Presbyterian) has congregations on the
Royal Mile and Crosscauseway; its offices and training college are
located on the Mound.
The
Scottish Episcopal
Church is part of the Anglican Communion.
Its centre is the
resplendent St Mary's Cathedral
, Palmerston Place in the west end.
In
addition, there are a number of independent churches situated
throughout the city; these churches tend to have a high percentage
of student congregants and include Destiny Church, Charlotte Chapel
, Carrubbers Christian Centre
, Morningside Baptist Church
and Bellevue Chapel
.
Other faiths
Edinburgh Central Mosque
- Edinburgh's main mosque and
Islamic Centre is located on Potterrow on the city's southside,
near Bristo Square. It was opened in the late 1990s and the
construction was largely financed by a gift from King Fahd of Saudi Arabia
. The first recorded presence of a
Jewish community in Edinburgh dates back to the late
17th century. Edinburgh's
Orthodox
synagogue is located in Salisbury Road,
which was opened in 1932 and can accommodate a congregation of
2000. A
Liberal congregation also
meets in the city. There is also a
Sikh
Gurdwara and
Hindu
Mandir in the city which are both located in
the Leith district.
Notable residents
Scotland has a rich history in science and engineering, with
Edinburgh contributing its fair share of famous names.
James Clerk Maxwell, the founder of the
modern theory of
electromagnetism,
was born here and educated at the
Edinburgh Academy and
University of Edinburgh, as was the
engineer and
telephone pioneer
Alexander Graham Bell. Other names
connected to the city include
Max Born,
physicist and
Nobel laureate;
Charles Darwin, the biologist who
discovered
natural selection;
David Hume, a philosopher, economist and
historian;
James Hutton, regarded as
the "Father of
Geology";
John Napier inventor of
logarithms; chemist and one of the founders of
thermodynamics
Joseph Black; pioneering
medical researchers
Joseph Lister and
James Young Simpson; chemist and
discoverer of the element
nitrogen,
Daniel Rutherford; mathematician
and developer of the
maclaurin
series,
Colin Maclaurin and
Ian Wilmut, the geneticist involved in
the cloning of
Dolly the sheep just
outside Edinburgh. The stuffed carcass of Dolly the sheep is now on
display in the National Museum of Scotland.
The lighthouse engineering family, the Stevenson family was based
in Edinburgh.
Famous authors of the city include
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of
Sherlock Holmes,
Ian Rankin, author of the
Inspector Rebus series
of crime thrillers,
J. K. Rowling, the
author of Harry Potter, who
wrote her first book in an Edinburgh coffee shop (Nicolson's Cafe, the Elephant House and
Black Medicine), Adam Smith, economist,
born in Kirkcaldy
, and author of The Wealth of Nations, Walter Scott, the author of famous titles such
as Rob Roy and Ivanhoe, Robert
Louis Stevenson, creator of Treasure
Island and the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll
and Mr Hyde.
Edinburgh has been home to the actor
Sir
Sean Connery, famed as the first cinematic
James Bond;
Ronnie
Corbett, a comedian and actor, best known as one of
The Two Ronnies; and
Dylan Moran, the Irish comedian. Famous city
artists include the portrait painters
Sir Henry Raeburn,
Sir David Wilkie and
Allan Ramsay. Historians such as
Douglas Johnson and
Arthur Marwick had roots here.
The city has produced or been home to musicians that have been
extremely successful in modern times, particularly
Ian Anderson, frontman of the band
Jethro Tull;
Wattie Buchan, lead singer and founding member
of punk band
The Exploited;
Shirley Manson, lead singer for the
band
Garbage;
The Proclaimers, a musical ensemble of two
brothers; the
Bay City Rollers;
Boards of Canada and
Idlewild.
Edinburgh is the hometown of the former
Prime Minister of
the United Kingdom, Tony Blair, who
was born in the city and attended Fettes College; Robin Harper the
co-convener of the Scottish Green
Party; and John Witherspoon,
the only clergyman to sign the United States
Declaration of Independence, and later president of Princeton University
.
On the more sinister side, famous criminals from Edinburgh's
history include
Deacon Brodie, pillar
of society by day and burglar by night, who is said to have
influenced
Robert Louis
Stevenson's story, the
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll
and Mr Hyde; the murderers
Burke and
Hare, who provided fresh corpses for anatomical dissection by
the famous surgeon
Robert Knox; and
Major Weir a notorious
warlock.
Twinning arrangements
The City of Edinburgh has entered into 11 international
twinning arrangements since 1954.
Most of the
arrangements are styled as 'Twin Cities', but the agreement with
Kraków
is designated as a 'Partner City'.
The
agreement with the Kyoto Prefecture
, concluded in 1994, is officially styled as a
'Friendship Link', reflecting its status as the only region to be
twinned with Edinburgh.
See also
Sources
Notes
References
- General Register Office for Scotland - mid 2008
population estimates by sex, age and administrative area
- Edinburgh voted most desirable city to live in
www.edinburgh-inspiringcapital.com, 14 August 2009
- Coghill, Hamish Lost Edinburgh pp. 1/2.
- Harris, The Place Names of Edinburgh(1996)
- Lownie, Auld Reekie, An Edinburgh Anthology (2004),
p.10
- Watson, The Celtic Place Names of Scotland (1926),
p.340
- Lynch et al., The Oxford Companion to Scottish History
(2001), p.658
- [1]
- Scottish Vernacular Dictionary
- List of
Latin place names in the British Isles
- Vivas Schola Regia
- Royal High School
- The Cambridge Companion to Ben Jonson.
Retrieved 17 April 2007.
- Marmion A Tale of Flodden Field by Walter Scott.
Retrieved 17 April 2007.
- The Story of Leith XXXIII. How Leith was
Governed
- J Stuart Murray in Edwards & Jenkins (2005); p64-65
- Edwards, B. & Jenkins, P. (2005) p21
- Lynch, M. (2001), p219
- Edwards, B. & Jenkins, P. (2005), p9
- Edwards, B. & Jenkins, P. (2005) p46
- Robinson, P. in Edwards, B. & Jenkins, P. (2005), p46
-
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/edinburgh/Train-interchange-delay-threatens-to.5471930.jp
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