Edinburgh

From New World Encyclopedia
Coordinates: 55°56′58″N 3°09′37″W / 55.949556, -3.160288
City of Edinburgh
Scottish Gaelic: Dùn Èideann
Scots: Edinburgh, Embra, Embro, Edinburrie
Auld Reekie, Athens of the North, Capital of Scotland

File:EdinburghFromCastle.jpg
View Over Edinburgh.

Edinburgh (Scotland)
Edinburgh

City of Edinburgh shown within Scotland
Area[1]  100 sq mi (259 km²)
Population 457,830 (30 June 2005)
Urban 1,250,000
OS grid reference NT275735
 - London 332 miles (535 km) SSE
Council area City of Edinburgh
Lieutenancy area Edinburgh
Constituent country Scotland
Sovereign state United Kingdom
Post town EDINBURGH
Postcode district EH1-EH13; EH14 (part); EH15-EH17
Dialling code 0131
Police
Fire
Ambulance Scottish
European Parliament Scotland
UK Parliament Edinburgh South
Edinburgh West
Edinburgh South West
Edinburgh North and Leith
Edinburgh East
Scottish Parliament Edinburgh North and Leith
Edinburgh Central
Edinburgh East and Musselburgh
Edinburgh Pentlands
Edinburgh South
Edinburgh West
Lothians
List of places: UK • Scotland

Edinburgh (Template:Audio2, pronounced /ˈɛdɪnb(ə)rə/; Scottish Gaelic: Dùn Èideann), located in the south-east of Scotland, is the capital of Scotland and is its second largest city after Glasgow.

Owing to its 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.

It forms the City of Edinburgh council area; the city council area includes urban Edinburgh and a 30-square-mile (78 km²) rural area.

It has been capital of Scotland since 1437 (replacing Scone) and 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 4500 listed buildings within the city.[2]

The city is one of Europe's major tourist destinations, attracting 1 million visitors a year, and is the second most visited tourist destination in the United Kingdom, after London.[3]

Geography

File:Edinburgh map.png
Map of the city, showing New and Old Towns
Looking northeast across part of Princes Street Gardens.
View over Auld Reekie, with the Dugald Stewart Monument in the foreground
The Mound, Edinburgh.
File:Edinburgh climate graph.png
Edinburgh climate graph.

The origin of the city's name in English is understood to come from the Brythonic Din Eidyn (Fort of Eidyn) from the time when it was a Gododdin hillfort.[4] It came to be known to the English, the Bernician Angles, as Edin-burh. The burgh means "fortress" or "walled group of buildings", while Edin is untranslated.

The city is affectionately nicknamed Auld Reekie[5] (Scots for Old Smoky), because when buildings were heated by coal and wood fires, chimneys would spew thick columns of smoke into the air. Some have called Edinburgh the Athens of the North and Auld Greekie for its intellectual history, and for its topography, with the Old Town of Edinburgh performing a similar role to the Athenian Acropolis.[6] Edinburgh is also known by several Latin names; Aneda or Edinensis, the latter can be seen inscribed on many educational buildings.[7][8][9][10][11]

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,[12] and Sir Walter Scott referred to the city as yon Empress of the North.[13]

Edinburgh occupies seven miles (11km) of the north-facing slope on the southern shore of the Firth of Forth, which is an arm of the North Sea reaching west into the Scottish Lowlands. Much of the city lies among craggy upthrusts of lava and hills — the valleys between were scoured by Pleistocene Epoch glacial action.

Arthur’s Seat has an elevation of 823 feet (251 metres), while Castle Rock, a basalt plug sealing an extinct volcano, stands 250 feet (76 metres) above the valley floor and is crowned by the famous Edinburgh Castle.

Edinburgh has a temperate maritime climate, which is relatively mild despite its northerly latitude. Winters are especially mild, with the average maximum daytime temperature in January of 43.2°F (6.2°C), rising to an average maximum of around 65.8°F (18.8°C) in July. The proximity of the city to the sea mitigates any large variations in temperature or extremes of climate. Edinburgh 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. Mean annual precipitation is 26.3 inches (668mm).

The historic centre of Edinburgh is divided by the broad green swathe of Princes Street Gardens. To the south is 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.

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.

Due to space restrictions, 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 10 and 11 stories being typical and one even reaching 14 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. [14]

The New Town resulted from a 1776 design competition, which created a rigid, ordered grid, which fitted well with enlightenment ideas of rationality. The principal street was 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.

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. Princes Street Gardens were created. Excess soil from the construction of the buildings was dumped into the loch, creating what became 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.

File:Edinburgh wiki.jpg
Panoramic view of Edinburgh from the top of Arthur's Seat.

History

Detail of the Hereford Mappa Mundi, Edinburgh is clearly labeled on this T and O map of the British isles from c. 1300
An 1802 illustration of Edinburgh from the West.
Edinburgh Castle, as viewed from Princes Street
A 19th century view of Holyrood Palace from Calton Hill.

Evidence of human settlement on the shores of the Firth of Forth dates back to 7000 B.C.E., while archaeological excavations reveal that the Castle Rock has been occupied since about 1000 B.C.E.

During the second century C.E., permanent Roman forts were built and occupied at Cramond and Inveresk on the western and eastern margins of the present-day city, and a road connecting the two forts almost certainly ran along the coast. A Celtic tribe known as the Votadini was based at Traprain Law, a hill about 20 miles (30km) east of the modern city during the Roman period, and moved to Castle Rock around 500, after the Romans left Britain.

In 580, when a military campaign started in Edinburgh (Din Etin), which was commemorated in the Welsh poem Y Gododdin, most of the inhabitants of southern Scotland spoke British, the ancestor of modern Welsh. The name of the king or chief whom the poem names as the leader of Edinburgh was Mynyddawc Mwynvawr.

Around 638, Edinburgh was besieged by unknown forces, according to a chronicle kept at Iona in the Hebrides. Many scholars have supposed that this siege marks the passing of control of the fort of Din Etin from the Gododdin to the Northumbrian English, led at this time by Oswald of Northumbria (604-642).

However, in the seventh century, Edwin of Northumbria (586-633), an Angle of Deira (the southern part of what became the Kingdom of Northumbria, captured this location and named it Eiden's burgh (burgh being an old word for "fort"). Edwin made Edinburgh his capital and from it carved out a kingdom, which stretched to the river Humber in England, known as Northumbria/Bernicia.

By 731, Edinburgh was firmly within the kingdom of Northumbria at the time of Bede (672-735), who completed his History in that year. Around 960, Edinburgh was captured by the Scots during the reign of Illulb mac Custantin (954-62).

King David I (1085-1153) granted Edinburgh the status of a Royal burgh in 1125, which promoted the manufacture of cloth and trade in the city.

Because of Edinburgh's earlier Anglo-Saxon rule, Edinburgh and the Border counties lay in a disputed zone between England and Scotland, England claiming all Anglo-Saxon Domains as English territory, and Scotland claiming all territory as far south as Hadrians Wall, the result being a long series of border wars and clashes, which often left Edinburgh Castle under English control.

After the Wars of Independence (1296–1328), fought against England, Edinburgh became Scotland’s main trading center. In 1329, King Robert the Bruce (reigned 1306–1329) confirmed Edinburgh's privileges as a royal burgh and established a port at Leith. At that time, Edinburgh was renowned for its stench — domestic refuse and offal from skinners, butchers, and fishmongers were dumped on either side of the main street.

It was not until the 15th century, when Edinburgh remained for the most firmly under Scottish control, that King James IV of Scotland (reigned 1488–1513) moved the Royal Court from Stirling to Holyrood, making Edinburgh Scotland's capital. James V established the Court of Session, the central civil-law court, in Edinburgh in 1532.

In 1603, following King James VI's accession to the English and Irish Thrones, James VI (1566-1625) instituted the first executive Parliament of Scotland which met in the Great Hall of Edinburgh Castle, later finding a home in the Tolbooth, before moving to purpose-built Parliament House, Edinburgh, which became home to the Supreme Courts of Scotland

In 1639, disputes over the planned merger, between the Presbyterian Church and the Anglican Church, and the demands by Charles I, to reunify the divided St Giles' Cathedral, led to the Bishops Wars (1639-1640_, which in turn led to the English Civil War (1641-1653), and the eventual the occupation of Edinburgh by Commonwealth forces of Oliver Cromwell. In the 1670s, King Charles II commissioned the rebuilding of Holyrood Palace.

In 1707, the Act of Union, which joined the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland (previously separate states) was signed in a cellar in Parliament Square, and Edinburgh lost all independent political life. A surge of building took place within the Old Town.

During the last Jacobite rebellion in 1746, which aimed to return descendants of the Scottish House of Stuart to the throne of England, Edinburgh was occupied by Jacobite forces. After the retreat of Jacobite forces from Derby it was re-occupied by British forces under the command of the Prince William, Duke of Cumberland (1721-1765). Following the defeat of Jacobites there was a long period of reprisals.

From 1772, Edinburgh expanded beyond the limits of its city walls, with the creation of the New Town, following the draining of the Nor Loch, which has since become Castle Gardens. George St, Frederick St, Hanover St, Queen St, and Prince’s St, were named in honour of the Hanoverian monarch on the English throne.

A number of Scottish intellectuals, many from Edinburgh, including political economist Adam Smith (1723-1790) and philosopher David Hume (1711-1776), felt it was a time for Scotland to modernise. They promoted the idea of Britishness, and led Great Britain and the British Empire into a golden age of economic and social reform and prosperity. Edinburgh became a cultural centre, earning it the nickname "Athens of the North", both due to the Greco-Roman style of the New Towns' architecture, as well as the rise of the Scottish/British intellectual elite in the city. The creator of the historical novel, Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), was another Edinburgh native.

From 1830 to World War I (1914-1918) Edinburgh, like many cities, industrialised, but most of this happened in Leith. Edinburgh did not grow greatly in size, but the increase in the labouring population brought overcrowding, malnutrition, and epidemics. Glasgow soon replaced it as the largest and most prosperous city in Scotland, becoming the industrial, commercial and trade centre, while Edinburgh remained Scotland's intellectual and cultural centre.

Sir Patrick Geddes (1854-1932), a pioneer of urban planning, tried to revive the Old Town in the 1890s. Nationalist poet Hugh MacDiarmid (1892-1978) made Edinburgh the centre of the Scottish political and literary renaissance in the 1920s and 1930s

After World War II (1939-1945), Edinburgh developed as a center for higher education, especially in medicine and surgery, electronics, and artificial intelligence. The cultural life of the city expanded, especially through the Edinburgh International Festival, which began in 1947. The city has begun a movement to conserve its stone architecture.

A new Scottish Parliament and government was established in Edinburgh in 1999, re-establishing the city as the capital and political centre of Scotland.

Government

The new Scottish Parliament Building opened in October 2004.

As part of the United Kingdom, Scotland is a liberal democracy and a constitutional monarchy. In elections to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (Westminster), the city area is divided between five first-past-the-post constituencies. As capital of Scotland, Edinburgh is host to the national unicameral legislature, the Scottish Parliament. The Scottish Parliament Building, in the Holyrood area of Edinburgh, opened in September 2004. The devolved Scottish Parliament is responsible for health, education, housing, economic development, regional transport, the environment, and agriculture. Bute House on Charlotte Square is the official residence of the First Minister of Scotland. For elections to the European Parliament, Edinburgh is within the Scotland constituency.

Edinburgh constitutes one of the 32 council areas of Scotland and, as such, is represented by the City of Edinburgh Council, a local authority composed of 58 elected councillors, each representing a multi-member electoral ward in the city. The council is led by the Lord Provost. Elections to the council are held on a four year cycle, the last on May 3, 2007. Councillors are elected from multi-member wards, each electing three or four councillors by the single transferable vote system, to produce a form of proportional representation.

Economy

The remains of Holyrood Abbey
The Forth Bridge at night.
Waverley (viewed from the Scott Monument), is located in the ravine between the Old and New Town on the drained Nor Loch.

Edinburgh has the strongest economy of any city in the UK outside London — the city's GDP per capita was measured at US$55,000 in 2004, compared with London's US$72,500 in 2005. The economy of Edinburgh is largely based around the services sector — centred around banking, financial services, higher education, and tourism. 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. Education and health, finance and business services, retailing and tourism are the largest employers.[15]

Banking has been a part of the economic life of Edinburgh for over 300 years with the invention of capitalism in the city, with the establishment of the Bank of Scotland by an act of the original Parliament of Scotland in 1695. Their headquarters are on the Mound, overlooking Princes Street. 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.[16] 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.

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.[17]

Manufacturing has never had as strong 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.

Unemployment in Edinburgh is low at 2.2 percent in 2007, which has been consistently below the Scottish average.[18]

Edinburgh has 70 post offices.

Edinburgh is a major transport hub, with arterial road and rail routes that connect the city to the rest of Scotland and with England. It is connected to the north of Scotland by the famous feats of engineering, the Forth Bridge and the Forth Road Bridge.

Most public transport trips in Edinburgh are taken by bus. Construction work began in 2007 on a light rapid transit tram line to connect Edinburgh Airport and Granton via the city centre and Leith Walk.

Leith, the port of Edinburgh, retains a separate identity. Redevelopment attracted the business of a number of cruise liner companies which provide cruises to Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands. Leith also has the decommissioned Royal Yacht Britannia. Large parts of the port have been redeveloped into retail and residential buildings.

Edinburgh is served by Edinburgh Airport (EDI), located about eight miles (13km) to the west of the city, with scheduled connections to many cities in Europe and international long-haul route network.

Demographics

St Giles' Cathedral.
The University of Edinburgh's Old College, home of its Law School.
File:St Mary's 3 spires.jpg
The three spires of St Mary's Cathedral.

The City of Edinburgh council area had an estimated resident population of 463,510 in 2006.[19] The 2001 UK census reported the population to be 448,624, making the city the seventh largest in the United Kingdom.[20] The population of the greater Edinburgh area (including parts of Fife and the Scottish Borders) is 1.25 million and is projected to grow to 1.33 million by 2020. Though Edinburgh's population is ageing, a very large and transient population of young students studying at the city universities has helped to offset this demographic problem. There are estimated to be around 100,000 students studying at the various institutions of higher education in the city.[21]

Edinburgh is a cosmopolitan city, with many immigrants from all corners of the world. From walking the streets, English, Gaelic, Polish, Chinese, French, Spanish, Hindi and many others can be heard.

The main ethnic groups are: Scottish (including those of mixed English and Scottish descent and those born in Scotland of full English descent) 82 percent, English 13 percent, Polish 2 percent, Chinese (including Chinese Hong Kong) 1 percent, Indian 1 percent, and Pakistani 1 percent. The other 2 percent includes French, Spanish, Lithuanians, Australians, New Zealanders, South Africans, Chileans, Malaysians and Africans from all parts of Africa. The Leith Walk, Leith, Tollcross and the Southside districts have many Polish, Chinese and South Asian immigrants. In these areas there are many food stores and both Leith and the Southside each have a mosque. Stockbridge has many wealthy English immigrants.

The primary languages spoken in Scotland are Scottish English, (Lowland) Scots, and Scottish Gaelic.

The Church of Scotland claims the largest membership of any religious denomination in Edinburgh. Its most important and historical church is St Giles' Cathedral. In the south east of the city is the 12th century Duddingston Kirk. The Roman Catholic Church also has a sizeable presence. 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 Free Church of Scotland (Reformed and Presbyterian) has congregations on the Royal Mile and Crosscauseway. 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.

There are a number of independent churches situated throughout the city, which tend to have a high percentage of student congregants and include Destiny Church, Charlotte Chapel, Carrubbers Christian Centre and Bellevue Chapel.

Edinburgh's main mosque and Islamic Centre is located on Potterow 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.[22] 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.

The Royal High School, that can can trace its roots back to 1128, is considered to be the oldest school in Scotland. The University of Edinburgh was founded by Royal Charter in 1583,[23] and is the fourth oldest university in Scotland. The Old College on South Bridge opened in the 1820s. The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh were established by Royal Charter, in 1506 and 1681 respectively. The Trustees Drawing Academy of Edinburgh was established in 1760,[24] an institution that became the Edinburgh College of Art in 1907.

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. Heriot-Watt continues to have a strong reputation in engineering, and is based at Riccarton, in the west of the city.

Other colleges include Telford College, opened in 1968, and Stevenson College, opened in 1970. Basil Paterson College offers courses in languages and teaching. The Scottish Agricultural College also has a campus in south Edinburgh.

Of interest

The Royal Mile in the Old Town during the Edinburgh Festival
Mary King's Close.

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 Comedy Festival (the largest comedy 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 (November 30), and the Beltane Fire Festival (30 April). Edinburgh has a large number of pubs, clubs and restaurants.

Edinburgh is home to a large number of museums and libraries, especially ones that are considered the main national institutions, the most important are 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. Buildings and sites of interest include:

  • Edinburgh Castle, which sits high on a rock overlooking the modern city. The first mention of a fortress on the rock occurs at the end of the sixth century C.E., but it's likely that it was a fortified position long before that. These days the oldest existing building is St. Margaret's chapel, built in the early 12th century.
  • The Royal Mile, which refers to the succession of streets which form the main thoroughfare of Edinburgh's Old Town. As the name suggests, the Royal Mile is approximately one Scottish mile long, and runs between Edinburgh Castle at the top of the Castle Rock down to Holyrood Abbey.
  • Holyrood Abbey, which is a ruined Augustinian Abbey sited in the grounds of the Royal Palace of Holyroodhouse, which it predates, and was built in 1128 at the order of King David I of Scotland.
  • Holyrood House, officially the Palace of Holyrood, which is situated at the bottom of the Royal Mile, and date largely from the reign of Charles II (c. 1649-1685). The Holyrood Abbey precinct remained a debtors' sanctuary until the 19th century, long after the abbey itself had fallen into disrepair.
  • Parliament House, which is located on the Royal Mile, and was built between 1632 and 1639. Since the union of the Scottish and English parliaments in 1707 the building has been used by the Court of Session, the highest court of law in Scotland.
  • St Giles Cathedral, which is also located on the Royal Mile, has existed since at least the 11th century, and was burned by the English in 1385.
  • Mary King's Close, which was named after a 16th century Edinburgh merchant named Mary King, consists of a number of closes which were originally narrow streets with tenement houses on either side, stretching up to seven storeys high.
  • Greyfriars Kirk, which is a parish kirk (church) of the Church of Scotland in central Edinburgh, is one of the oldest surviving buildings built outside the Old Town of Edinburgh, having been begun in 1602.
  • Edinburgh Zoo, which is located on the Corstorphine Hill, and was built in 1913, receives over 600,000 visitors a year, which makes it Scotland's second most popular paid-for tourist attraction, after Edinburgh Castle.
  • The Royal Museum, which is the old name for part of the National Museum of Scotland, one of Scotland's national museums, in Edinburgh. Among artifacts from around the world, one of the more notable exhibits is Dolly the sheep, the first successful clone of a mammal from an adult cell.

Edinburgh has a long literary tradition, going back to the Scottish Enlightenment. Edinburgh's Enlightenment produced philosopher David Hume and the pioneer of economics, 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 two professional football clubs: Hibernian and Heart of Midlothian. The Scotland national rugby union team plays at Murrayfield Stadium, the Scottish cricket team play their home matches at The Grange, and the Edinburgh Capitals are the latest of a succession of ice hockey clubs to represent the Scottish capital. In April 2008 Mark Beaumont, from New Town, Edinburgh, broke the world record for the fastest circumnavigation of the globe by bicycle, completing his ride in only 194 days and 17 hours.

Panorama of the Old Town and Southside of Edinburgh from the Nelson monument. Panorama was originally coined by the Irish painter Robert Barker to describe his panoramic paintings of Edinburgh.

Notes

  1. Edinburgh Facts. Retrieved 2007-07-07.
  2. Conservation in Edinburgh. The City of Edinburgh Council. Retrieved 2007-05-20.
  3. Overseas Visitors to the UK - Top Towns Visited 2005. VisitBritain. Retrieved 2007-01-28.
  4. Gardens of the 'Gododdin' Craig Cessford Garden History, Vol. 22, No. 1 (Summer, 1994), pp. 114-115 doi:10.2307/1587005
  5. Scottish Vernacular Dictionary
  6. Stoppard, Tom. Jumpers, Grove Press, 1972, p. 69.
  7. ORBIS LATINUS: Letter A
  8. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Latin_place_names_in_the_British_Isles
  9. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivas_Schola_Regia
  10. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_High_School_(Edinburgh)
  11. Pharmaceutical Latin Abbreviations
  12. The Cambridge Companion to Ben Jonson, retrieved 17 April 2007
  13. Marmion A Tale of Flodden Field by Walter Scott, retrieved 17 April 2007
  14. Donald Campbell (2003). Edinburgh: A cultural and literary history. Oxford: Signal Books. ISBN 1-902669-73-8. 
  15. Edinburgh City of Learning. Learning Towns and Cities. Retrieved 2007-03-23.
  16. Information for Journalists. Edinburgh Brand. Retrieved 2007-03-23.
  17. 2004 Festival Economic Impact Study results. Edinburgh Festival Fringe (2005-10-14). Retrieved 2007-03-23.
  18. Industry/employment profile. Scottish Enterprise. Retrieved 2007-03-23.
  19. Mid Year Population Estimates, 2006. General Register Office for Scotland, 2006. Retrieved 2008-01-19.
  20. City Comparisons Table. Edinburgh City Council. Retrieved 2007-01-28.
  21. Napier University Edinburgh. Graduate Prospects. Retrieved 2007-03-23.
  22. Financing the project. Edinburgh Islamic Centre. Retrieved 2007-03-23.
  23. University of Edinburgh Historical Tour. Retrieved 2007-04-21.
  24. Trustees Academy School of Art, Edinburgh. Retrieved 2007-04-17.

Further reading

  • Campbell, Donald. 2004. Edinburgh: a cultural and literary history. Cities of the imagination. New York: Interlink Books. ISBN 9781566565158
  • Davies, Norman. 1999. The Isles: A History. London: Macmillan. ISBN 0333692837
  • Harris, Nathaniel. 2000. Heritage of Scotland: a cultural history of Scotland & its people. New York: Checkmark Books. ISBN 9780816041367
  • Magnusson, Magnus. 2000. Scotland: the story of a nation. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press. ISBN 9780871137982

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