Edinburgh, Scotland Sleep Facts

Sleep comes easily when the topic is Edinburgh, a city where volcanic rock, medieval alleys, and Enlightenment thinkers all somehow coexist without making too much noise. This bedtime journey through Scotland’s capital delivers a gentle mix of royalty, architecture, and vague weather references—ideal for insomnia relief and fans of historical ambiance who are already half-asleep.

Transcript

Welcome to the I Can't Sleep podcast,

Where I help you learn a little and sleep a lot.

I'm your host,

Benjamin Boster,

And tonight let's fall asleep learning about Edinburgh,

Scotland.

Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas.

The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pendland Hills.

Edinburgh had a population of 506,

520 in 2020,

Making it the second most populous city in Scotland and the seventh most populous in the United Kingdom.

The wider metropolitan area had a population of 912,

490 in the same year.

Recognized as the capital of Scotland since at least the 15th century,

Edinburgh is the seat of the Scottish Government,

The Scottish Parliament,

The highest courts in Scotland,

And the Palace of Holyroodhouse,

The official residence of the British monarch in Scotland.

It is also the annual venue of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

The city has long been a center of education,

Particularly in the fields of medicine,

Scottish law,

Literature,

Philosophy,

The sciences,

And engineering.

The University of Edinburgh was founded in 1582 and is now one of the three universities in the city.

The Financial Centre of Scotland,

Edinburgh,

Is the second largest financial centre in the United Kingdom,

The fourth largest in Europe,

And the 13th largest in the world.

The city is a cultural centre and is the home of institutions including the National Museum of Scotland,

The National Library of Scotland,

And the Scottish National Gallery.

The city is also known as the Edinburgh International Festival and the Fringe,

The latter being the world's largest annual international arts festival.

Historic sites in Edinburgh include Edinburgh Castle,

The Palace of Holyroodhouse,

The Churches of St Giles,

Greyfriars,

And the Cannongate,

And the extensive Georgian New Town built in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Edinburgh's Old Town and New Town together are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site,

Which has been managed by Edinburgh World Heritage since 1999.

The city's historical and cultural attractions have made it Britain's second most visited tourist destination,

Attracting 4.

9 million visits,

Including 2.

4 million from overseas in 2018.

Edinburgh is governed by the City of Edinburgh Council,

A unitary authority.

The City of Edinburgh Council area had an estimated population of 514,

990 in 2022 and includes outlying towns and villages which are not part of Edinburgh proper.

The city is in the Lothian region and was historically part of the Shire of Midlothian,

Also called Edinburgh Shire.

Edin,

The root of the city's name,

Derives from Aedon,

The name of the region in Cumbric,

The Brittonic Celtic language formerly spoken there.

The name's meaning is unknown.

The district of Aedon was centred on the stronghold of Din Aedon,

The Dun or hillfort of Aedon.

The stronghold is believed to have been located at Castle Rock,

Now the side of Edinburgh Castle.

A siege of Din Aedon by Oswald,

King of the Angles of Northumbria in 638,

Marked the beginning of three centuries of Germanic influence in south-east Scotland that laid the foundations for the development of Scots,

Before the town was ultimately subsumed in 954 by the kingdom known to the English as Scotland.

As the language shifted from Cumbric to Northumbrian Old English and then Scots,

The Brittonic Din in Din Aedon was replaced by Burra,

Producing Edinburgh.

In Scottish Gaelic,

Din becomes Dun,

Producing modern Dun Aedon.

The city is affectionately nicknamed Old Reekie,

Scots for Old Smoky,

For the views from the country of the smoke-covered Old Town.

A note in a collection of the works of the poet Alan Ramsey explains,

Old Reekie,

A name the country people give Edinburgh,

From the cloud of smoke,

Or reek,

That is always impending over it.

In Walter Scott's 1820 novel,

The Abbot,

A character observes that yonder stands Old Reekie,

You may see the smoke hover over her at twenty miles distance.

Thomas Carlyle comments on the phenomenon.

Smoke-cloud hangs over Old Edinburgh,

For ever since Aeneas Silvius's time and earlier,

The people have the art,

Very strange to Aeneas,

Of burning a certain sort of black stones,

And Edinburgh with its chimneys is called Old Reekie by the country people.

The nineteenth-century historian Robert Chambers asserted that the sobriquet could not be traced before the reign of King Charles II in the late seventeenth century.

He attributed the name to a fife-laired Durham of Largo,

Who regulated the bedtime of his children by the smoke rising above Edinburgh from the fires of the tenements.

It's time now,

Bairns,

To take the books and add to our beds,

For there's Old Reekie,

I see,

Putting on her nightcap.

Edinburgh has been popularly called the Athens of the North since the early nineteenth century.

References to Athens,

Such as Athens of Britain and modern Athens,

Had been made as early as the 1760s.

The similarities were seen to be topographical but also intellectual.

Edinburgh's Castle Rock reminded returning grand tourists of the Athenian Acropolis,

As did aspects of the neoclassical architecture and layout of Newtown.

Both cities had flatter,

Fertile agricultural land sloping down to a port several miles away.

Intellectually,

The Scottish Enlightenment,

With its humanist and rationalist outlook,

Was influenced by ancient Greek philosophy.

In 1822,

The English landscape painter Hugh William Williams organized an exhibition that showed his paintings of Athens alongside views of Edinburgh,

And the idea of a direct parallel between both cities quickly caught the popular imagination.

When plans were drawn up in the early nineteenth century to architecturally develop Colin Hill,

The sign of the National Monument directly copied Athens' Parthenon.

Tom Stoppard's character Archie of Jumpers said,

Perhaps playing on Reykjavik,

Meaning Smoky Bay,

That the Reykjavik of the South would be more appropriate.

The city has also been known by several Latin names,

Such as Edenburgum,

While the adjectival forms Adenburgensis and Adenensis are used in educational and scientific contexts.

Edina is a late eighteenth-century poetical form used by the Scottish poets Robert Ferguson and Robert Burns.

Embra and Embro are colloquialisms from the same time,

As in Robert Geary's Embro to the Ploy.

Ben Johnson described it as Britain's Other Eye,

And Sir Walter Scott referred to it as Yon Empress of the North.

Robert Louis Stevenson,

Also a son of the city,

Wrote that Embra is what Paris ought to be.

The earliest known human habitation in the Embra area was at Cramond,

Where evidence was found of a Mesolithic campsite dated to circa 8500 BC.

Traces of later Bronze Age and Iron Age settlements have been found on Castle Rock,

Arthur's Seat,

Craiglockhart Hill,

And the Pendlin Hills.

When the Romans arrived in Lothian at the end of the first century AD,

They found a Bretonic Celtic tribe whose name they recorded as the Votadini.

The Votadini transitioned into the Godothan kingdom in the early Middle Ages,

With Eidon serving as one of the kingdom's districts.

During this period,

The Castle Rock side,

Thought to have been the stronghold of Din Eidon,

Emerged as the kingdom's major centre.

The medieval Welsh language poem,

A Godothan,

Describes a warband from across the Bretonic world who gathered in Eidon before a fateful raid.

This may describe a historical event around 600 AD.

In 638,

The Godothan stronghold was besieged by forces loyal to King Oswald of Northumbria,

And around this time,

Control of Lothian passed to the Angles.

The influence continued for the next three centuries until around 950,

When the reign of Indulf,

Son of Constantine II,

The Burr fortress,

Named the 10th century Pictish chronicle as Opetum Eidon,

Was abandoned to the Scots.

It henceforth remained,

For the most part,

Under their jurisdiction.

The Royal Burra was founded by King David I in the early 12th century on land belonging to the Crown,

Though the date of its charter is unknown.

The first documentary evidence of the medieval Burra is a royal charter circa 1124 to 1127 by King David I,

Granting a toft and burgomeo de Edensburg to the Priory of Defermlin.

The Shire of Edinburgh seems also to have been created during David's reign,

Possibly covering all of Lothian at first,

But by 1305 the eastern and western parts of Lothian had become Haddingtonshire and Linliscashire,

Leaving Edinburgh as the county town of a shire covering the central part of Lothian,

Which was called Edinburghshire or Midlothian,

The latter name being an informal but commonly used alternative until the county's name was legally changed in 1947.

In the middle of the 14th century,

The French chronicler Jean Frassar described it as the capital of Scotland circa 1365,

And James III,

1451 to 1488,

Referred to it in the 5th century as the principal Burra of our kingdom.

In 1482,

James III granted the title of and perpetually confirmed to the said provost,

Baileys,

Clerk,

Council and community and their successors the office of shire within the Burra forever,

To be exercised by the provost for the time as sheriff and by the baileys for the time as sheriff's deputy conjunctly and severally,

With full power to hold courts,

To punish transgressors not only by banishment but by death,

To appoint officers of court and to do everything else appertaining to the office of sheriff,

And also to apply to their own proper use the fines and escheats arising out of the exercise of the said office.

Despite being burnt by the English in 1544,

Edinburgh continued to develop and grow,

And was at the center of events in the 16th century Scottish Reformation and 17th century Wars of the Covenant.

In 1582,

Edinburgh's town council was given a royal charter by King James VI and I,

Permitting the establishment of a university.

Founded as Tunis College,

Towns College,

The institution developed into the University of Edinburgh,

Which contributed to Edinburgh's central intellectual role in subsequent centuries.

In 1603,

King James VI of Scotland seceded to the English throne,

Uniting the crowns of Scotland and England in a personal union known as the Union of the Crowns,

Though the two kingdoms remained separate realms governed in personal union.

In 1638,

King Charles I's attempt to introduce Anglican church forms in Scotland encountered stiff Presbyterian opposition,

Culminating in the conflicts of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms.

Subsequent Scottish support for Charles II's restoration to the throne of England resulted in Edinburgh's occupation by Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth of England forces,

The New Model Army,

In 1650.

In the 17th century,

Edinburgh's boundaries were still defined by the city's defensive town walls.

As a result,

The city's growing population was accommodated by increasing the height of the houses.

Buildings of 11 storeys or more were common,

And have been described as forerunners of the modern day's skyscraper.

Most of these old structures were replaced by the predominantly Victorian buildings seen in today's Old Town.

In 1611,

An Act of Parliament created the High Constables of Edinburgh to keep order in the city,

Thought to be the oldest statutory police force in the world.

Following the Treaty of Union in 1706,

The Parliaments of England and Scotland passed Acts of Union in 1706 and 1707 respectively,

Uniting the two kingdoms in the Kingdom of Great Britain,

Effective from May 1st,

1707.

As a consequence,

The Parliament of Scotland merged with the Parliament of England to form the Parliament of Great Britain,

Which sat at Westminster in London.

The Union was opposed by many Scots,

Resulting in riots in the city.

By the first half of the 18th century,

Edinburgh was described as one of Europe's most densely populated,

Overcrowded,

And unsanitary towns.

Visitors were struck by the fact that the social classes shared the same urban space,

Even inhabiting the same tenement buildings.

Although here a form of social segregation did prevail,

Whereby shopkeepers and tradesmen tended to occupy the cheaper-to-rent cellars and garrets,

While the more well-to-do professional classes occupied the more expensive middle stories.

During the Jacobite Rising of 1745,

Edinburgh was briefly occupied by the Jacobite Highland Army before its march into England.

After its eventual defeat at Culloden,

There followed a period of reprisals and pacification,

Largely directed at the rebellious clans.

In Edinburgh,

The Town Council came to emulate London by initiating city improvements and expansion to the north of the castle,

Reaffirmed its belief in the Union and loyal to the Hanoverian monarch George III by its choice of names for the streets of the new town,

For example Rose Street and Thistle Street,

And for the royal family,

George Street,

Queen Street,

Hanover Street,

Frederick Street,

And Prince's Street,

In honour of George's two sons.

The consistently geometric layout of the plan for the extension of Edinburgh was the result of a major competition in urban planning,

Staged by the Town Council in 1766.

In the second half of the century,

The city was at the heart of the Scottish Enlightenment,

When thinkers like David Hume,

Adam Smith,

James Hutton,

And Joseph Black were familiar figures in its streets.

Edinburgh became a major intellectual centre,

Earning it the nickname Athens of the North because of its many neoclassical buildings and reputation for learning,

Recalling ancient Athens.

In the 18th century novel The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker by Tobias Smollett,

One character describes Edinburgh as a hotbed of genius.

Edinburgh was also a major centre for the Scottish book trade.

The highly successful London bookseller Andrew Miller was apprenticed there to James McEwan.

From the 1770s onwards,

The professional and business classes gradually deserted the old town in favour of the more elegant one-family residences of the new town.

A migration that changed the city's social character.

According to the foremost historian of this development,

Unity of social feeling was one of the most valuable heritages of old Edinburgh,

And its disappearance was widely and properly lamented.

Despite an enduring myth to the contrary,

Edinburgh became an industrial centre with its traditional industries of printing,

Brewing and distilling continuing to grow in the 19th century and joined by new industries such as rubber works,

Engineering works and others.

By 1821,

Edinburgh had been overtaken by Glasgow as Scotland's largest city.

The city centre between Prince's Street and George Street became a major commercial and shopping district,

A development partly stimulated by the arrival of railways in the 1840s.

The old town became an increasingly dilapidated,

Overcrowded slum with high mortality rates.

Improvements carried out under Lord Provost William Chambers in the 1860s began the transformation of the area into the predominantly Victorian old town seen today.

More improvements followed in the early 20th century as a result of the work of Patrick Geddes,

But relative economic stagnation during the two world wars and beyond saw the old town deteriorate further before major slum clearance in the 1960s and 70s began to reverse the process.

University building developments,

Which transformed the George Square and Potterow areas,

Proved highly controversial.

Since the 1990s,

A new financial district,

Including the Edinburgh International Conference Centre,

Has grown mainly on demolished railway property to the west of the castle,

Stretching into Fountainbridge,

A run-down 19th century industrial suburb which has undergone radical change since the 1980s with the demise of industrial and brewery premises.

This ongoing development has enabled Edinburgh to maintain its place as the United Kingdom's second-largest financial and administrative centre after London.

Financial services now account for a third of all commercial office space in the city.

The development of Edinburgh Park,

A new business and technology park,

Covering 38 acres,

Four miles west of the city centre,

Has also contributed to the District Council's strategy for the city's major economic regeneration.

In 1998,

The Scotland Act,

Which came into force the following year,

Established a devolved Scottish Parliament and Scottish Executive,

Renamed the Scottish Government since September 2007.

Both based in Edinburgh,

They are responsible for governing Scotland,

While reserved matters such as defence,

Foreign affairs and some elements of income tax remain the responsibility of the Parliament of the United Kingdom in London.

In 2022,

Edinburgh was affected by the 2022 Scotland bin strikes.

In 2023,

Edinburgh became the first capital city in Europe to sign the Global Plant-Based Treaty,

Which was introduced at COP26 in 2021 in Glasgow.

Green Party councillor Steve Burgess introduced the treaty.

The Scottish Countryside Alliance and other farming groups called the treaty anti-farming.

Situated in Scotland's central belt,

Edinburgh lies on the southern shore of the Firth of Forth.

The city centre is two plus one-half miles southwest of the shoreline of Leith and 26 miles inland,

As the crow flies,

From the east coast of Scotland and the North Sea at Dunbar.

While the early borough grew up near the prominent Castle Rock,

The modern city is often said to be built on seven hills,

Namely Calton Hill,

Castorphine Hill,

Craiglockhart Hill,

Braid Hill,

Blackford Hill,

Arthur's Seat and the Castle Rock,

Giving rise to allusions to the Seven Hills of Rome.

Occupying a narrow gap between the Firth of Forth to the north and the Pendlyn Hills and outrunners to the south,

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 creation of tough basalt volcanic plugs which predominate over much of the area.

One such example is the Castle Rock,

Which forced the advancing ice sheet to divide,

Sheltering the softer rock and forming a one-mile-long tail of material to the east,

Thus creating a distinctive crag and tail formation.

Glacial erosion on the north side of the crag gouged a deep valley later filled by the now-drained Norlock.

These features,

Along with another hollow on the rock's south side,

Formed an ideal natural strong point upon which Edinburgh Castle was built.

Similarly,

Arthur's Seat is the remains of a volcano dating from the Carboniferous period,

Which was eroded by a glacier moving west to east during the Ice Age.

Erosive action,

Such as plucking and abrasion,

Exposed the rocky crags to the west before leaving a tail of depositive glacial material swept to the east.

This process formed the distinctive Salisbury Crags,

A series of tessionite cliffs between Arthur's Seat and the location of the early Burra.

The residential areas of Marchmont and Brunsfield are built along a series of drumlin ridges south of the city centre,

Which were deposited as the glacier receded.

Other prominent landforms,

Such as Calton Hill and Corstorphine Hill,

Are also products of glacial erosion.

The Braid Hills and Blackford Hills are a series of small summits to the south of the city centre that command expansive views looking northwards over the urban area to the first of four.

Edinburgh is drained by the river named the Water of Leith,

Which rises at the Colesham Springs in the Pendlene Hills,

And runs for 18 miles to the south and west of the city,

Emptying into the first of four at Leith.

The nearest the river gets to the city centre is at Deane Village on the northwestern edge of the new town,

Where a deep gorge is spanned by Thomas Telford's Deane Bridge,

Built in 1832 for the road to Queensferry.

The Water of Leith walkway is a mixed-use trail that follows the course of the river for 19 miles.

The length of the route is 3.

6 kilometres from Balerno to Leith.

Accepting the shoreline of the first of four,

Edinburgh is encircled by a green belt,

Designated in 1957,

Which stretches from Dalmany in the west to Preston Grange in the east.

With an average width of 3.

2 kilometres,

The principal objectives of the green belt were to contain the outward expansion of the city and to prevent the agglomeration of urban areas.

Expansion affecting the green belt is strictly controlled,

But developments such as Edinburgh Airport and the Royal Highland Showground at Ingliston lie within the zone.

Similarly,

Suburbs such as Juniper Green and Balerno are situated on green belt land.

One feature of the Edinburgh green belt is the inclusion of parcels of land within the city,

Which are designated green belt,

Even though they do not connect with the peripheral ring.

Reviews

I am going to Edinburgh in July! Thank YOU for this!
PS… I also slept so well

I’d love to visit Scotland, I’m a little obsessed with the UK. I only heard a little bit though, it’s like as soon as I heard your voice, I was asleep. Hopefully that doesn’t happen to you in real life! 🤣🤣

Thanks, Benjamin!! 😁😻

Loved this one! Listened twice and fell asleep twice! I was in Edinburgh in 89 (I know, I’m old) and I remember the Firth of Forth, Edinburgh castle and the Scottish National Gallery. In fact we had to wait to enter the Gallery until the Queen and her entourage (including Prince Philip and Fuergy) were finished viewing before we could enter!! We were behind a gate at least 50 yards away, but still we saw them exit and get into limos. 😎🍀💖