Edinburgh

Edinburgh (ĕd`ĭnbərə), city (1991 pop. 433,200) and council area, royal burgh, capital of Scotland, on the Firth of Forth. Leith, part of the city since 1920, is Edinburgh's port. The city is famous in Scottish legend and literature as Dunedin or "Auld Reekie." It is divided into two sections. The Old Town, on the slope of Castle Rock, dates from the 11th cent. and contains most of the city's historic sites; the New Town spread to the north in the late 18th cent.

Economy

Edinburgh is Scotland's administrative, financial, legal, medical, and insurance center, and the city has become an important nuclear and electronics research center. The port imports grain, fertilizer, petroleum, minerals, wood pulp, cement, fruit, and vegetables. Edinburgh is a large brewing center, has a thriving publishing industry, and produces great quantities of high-grade paper. There are metalworks and rubber and engineering works. Other industries are distilling; the manufacture of glassware, drugs, and chemicals; and shipbuilding. The Waverly railway station is the second largest in Great Britain. Tourism is of major importance.

Points of Interest

The Edinburgh International Festival of Music and Drama, held every summer since 1947, is world famous; its 1,900-seat theater opened in 1994. Other notable features are the new Parliament Building; National War Memorial; the collections of the Royal Scottish Academy, the National Gallery of Scotland, the Royal Scottish Museum, and the Museum of Scotland; the National Library; Princes St.; the Royal Botanic Gardens; the house of the Protestant reformer John Knox

Early Career as a Reformer

Little is recorded of his life before 1545. He probably attended St. Andrews Univ.
..... ; the church of St. Giles, dating from the 12th cent.; the Real Mary King's Close, narrow streets and buildings that were buried underground in the 18th cent.; and the site of the famous prison, Old Tolbooth, which figures in Scott's novel The Heart of Midlothian. The Univ. of Edinburgh was founded under James VI in 1583; other institution of higher education include Heriot-Watt Univ. and Napier Univ.

History

Edinburgh's history may be said to have begun when Malcolm III of Scotland erected a castle there in the late 11th cent. and his wife built the Chapel of St. Margaret, the city's oldest surviving building. A town grew up around the castle and was chartered in 1329 by Robert I. It grew steadily despite repeated sacking and burning by the English in the border wars and became the capital city of Scotland in 1437.

James IV was the first monarch to make Edinburgh his regular seat. The rooms of Mary Queen of Scots are preserved in Holyrood Palace. The city lost importance when James VI became king of England in 1603 and commerce and society followed the court to London. After the Act of Union with England in 1707 dissolved the Scottish Parliament, Edinburgh retained the Supreme Courts of Law, which now meet in the old Parliament House.

Edinburgh blossomed as a cultural center in the 18th and 19th cent. around the figures of the philosophers David Hume and Adam Smith and the writers Robert Burns

Life

The son of a hard-working and intelligent farmer, Burns was the oldest of seven children, all of whom had to help in the work on the farm.
.....  and Sir Walter Scott. The Edinburgh Review, founded in 1802, added to the city's literary reputation. Following voter approval and parliamentary passage of a devolution act, the Scottish Parliament met for the first time in nearly 300 years in Edinburgh in 1999. The new parliament building was completed in 2004.

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Edinburgh

City and council area (pop., 2001: 448,624), capital of Scotland. The city and most of the council area, including the busy port of Leith on the Firth of Forth, lie within the historic county of Midlothian. Located in southeastern Scotland, the original burgh, now known as the Old Town, arose in the 11th century, around Edinburgh Castle, the royal residence of Malcolm III MacDuncan. In 1329 Robert the Bruce granted Edinburgh a town charter; it became the capital of the Scottish kingdom in 1437. The city was destroyed in 1544 in the border wars with England; its characteristic use of stone architecture began with this rebuilding. During the 18th century Scotland experienced a cultural and intellectual renaissance, and Edinburgh was home to such luminaries as David Hume, Adam Smith, Robert Burns, and Walter Scott. It was the birthplace of Encyclopædia Britannica (1768) and the Edinburgh Review (1802). The city expanded in the late 18th century with the development of the Georgian-style New Town, separated from the Old Town by a valley. Edinburgh is the centre of Scottish culture and education and is home to the University of Edinburgh, the National Library, the National Gallery, and the Royal Scottish Museum. It is the site of the Scottish Parliament, which first convened in 1999.

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Edinburgh¹

Duke of, title of Prince Philip Mountbatten. born 1921, husband of Elizabeth II of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

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Edinburgh²

1. the capital of Scotland and seat of the Scottish Parliament (from 1999), in City of Edinburgh council area on the S side of the Firth of Forth: became the capital in the 15th century; castle; three universities (including University of Edinburgh,1583); commercial and cultural centre, noted for its annual festival. Pop.: 430 082 (2001)

2. City of. a council area in central Scotland, created from part of Lothian region in 1996. Pop.: 448 370 (2003 est.). Area: 262 sq. km (101 sq. miles)