Also known as Embro.

Former and merged names include:
· Dunedin

Settlement began upon Castle Rock, site of Edinburgh Castle, which still dominates views of the city.

Robert the Bruce declared this the capital of Scotland in 1325.

Scotland's Parliament was based here until the 1707 Act of Union. The new Scottish Parliament began sitting in Edinburgh in 1999.

Edinburgh?s strong Presbyterian roots helped spawn literacy in that city as well as across Scotland. After its Parliament passed a 1696 law requiring every parish to have a school so that children would grow up reading the Bible, Scotland became Europe?s first modern literate society.

By the 18th century, Edinburgh rivaled London and Paris as a European intellectual center, and would become a motor of the Scottish Enlightenment with philosophers David Hume, Lord Kames and Dugald Stewart, historian William Robertson and geologist James Hutton.

Britain?s first lending library was opened here in 1725, the brainchild of poet Allan Ramsey, who came to Edinburgh as a wigmakers apprentice.

Received national attention for the 1997 cloning of Dolly the sheep. Scientists at the Roslin Institute cloned her from an adult cell.

Filming location for:
· 1981 movie, "Chariots of Fire"
· 1969 movie, "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie"
· 2006 movie, "The Da Vinci Code"

Surgeon Joseph Bell, who taught Arthur Conan Doyle as a medical student, was a model for Sherlock Holmes.

Cramond Island, one of several islands in the Firth of Forth, is the inspiration for R.L. Stevenson?s Treasure Island and where Miss Jean Brodie spent her weekends.

Deacon William Brodie, (1741-88) an Edinburgh town councilor by day and a thief by night, was a basis for R.L. Stevenson?s "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde."

Setting for "Trainspotting," the novel by Irvine Welsh about the heroin-addicted fringe of working-class Edinburgh; made into a 1996 movie

Well-known residents have included:
· Sir Walter Scott, novelist
· Adam Smith, philosopher
· James VI of Scotland and I of England
· Robert Louis Stevenson, author
· Robert Burns, poet
· Alexander McCall Smith, author
· Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author
· JK Rowling, author
· Tony Blair, prime minister
· James Boswell, biographer
· Douglas Haig, commander-in-chief of the British Army during World War I
· Muriel Spark, author
· Iain Anderson, singer (Jethro Tull)
· Hugh MacDiarmid, poet
· Sean Connery, actor
· Charles Darwin, naturalist

Fictional characters who hark from here include:
· James Bond, who like British Prime Minister Tony Blair, attended Fettes College.

Annual events include:
· Edinburgh International Film Festival - 15-26 August 2007
· International Festival - 10 August - 2 September 2007
· Jazz & Blues Festival - 27 July - 5 August 2007
· Edinburgh Festival Fringe - 5-27 August 2007
· Edinburgh International Book Festival - 11-27 August 2007
· Hogmanay - 29 December - 1 January 2007
· Beltane Fire Festival - 30 April 2007
· International Harp Festival - 30 March - 4 April 2007
· Mary King's Ghost Fest - 11-20 May 2007
Dates often change. Check Edinburgh web sites and events links in the sections below.