Portal:Edinburgh

Edinburgh Castle is a historic castle in Edinburgh, Scotland. It stands on Castle Rock, which has been occupied by humans since at least the Iron Age. There has been a royal castle on the rock since the reign of Malcolm III in the 11th century, and the castle continued to be a royal residence until 1633. From the 15th century, the castle's residential role declined, and by the 17th century it was principally used as a military garrison. Its importance as a part of Scotland's national heritage was recognised increasingly from the early 19th century onwards, and various restoration programmes have been carried out over the past century and a half.

Edinburgh Castle has played a prominent role in Scottish history, and has served variously as a royal residence, an arsenal, a treasury, a national archive, a mint, a prison, a military fortress, and the home of the Honours of Scotland – the Scottish regalia. As one of the most important strongholds in the Kingdom of Scotland, the castle was involved in many historical conflicts from the Wars of Scottish Independence in the 14th century to the Jacobite rising of 1745. Research undertaken in 2014 identified 26 sieges in its 1,100-year history, giving it a claim to having been "the most besieged place in Great Britain and one of the most attacked in the world". Few of the present buildings pre-date the Lang Siege of 1573, when the medieval defences were largely destroyed by artillery bombardment. The most notable exceptions are St Margaret's Chapel from the early 12th century, which is regarded as the oldest building in Edinburgh, the Royal Palace, and the early 16th-century Great Hall. The castle is the site of the Scottish National War Memorial and the National War Museum. The British Army is still responsible for some parts of the castle, although its presence is now largely ceremonial and administrative. The castle is the regimental headquarters of the Royal Regiment of Scotland and the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards and houses their regimental museums, along with that of the Royal Scots. (Full article...)

The Union Canal was opened in 1822 and provides an inland waterway link from Edinburgh to Falkirk and from there to Glasgow via the Forth and Clyde Canal. It is currently owned by the public corporation Scottish Canals and chiefly used for leisure purposes. (Full article...)

The Calders is a residential neighbourhood in Edinburgh, Scotland – not to be confused with the Calders of West Lothian aka West Calder, Mid Calder and East Calder, three separate villages. It is sometimes considered to be part of Wester Hailes or Sighthill, larger developments to its south and east respectively. From 2007 to 2017, it fell within the Sighthill/Gorgie multi-member ward of the City of Edinburgh Council administration along with Sighthill, but following a boundary change has been in the Pentland Hills ward since then, along with Wester Hailes.

To the west of the neighbourhood is the A720 Edinburgh city bypass road, with Heriot-Watt University's main campus at Riccarton beyond. To the north, the Calders borders the A71 Calder Road, which at that point is a dual carriageway leading off the city bypass towards Gorgie and the city centre; on the other side of the A71 is the large Bankhead industrial estate. The Union Canal passes through the area, marking its western and southern boundaries. Pedestrian underpasses connect the Calders to Bankhead under the A71, and to Sighthill under the B701 Wester Hailes Road, also a dual carriageway. The presence of the three main roads and canal surrounding the area on all sides gives it a somewhat isolated character, and a roughly square territory. (Full article...)

The Firth of Forth (Scottish Gaelic: Linne Foirthe) is a firth in Scotland, an inlet of the North Sea that separates Fife to its north and Lothian to its south. Further inland, it becomes the estuary of the River Forth and several other rivers. (Full article...)

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Edinburgh Grand Opera was Scotland's oldest existing grand opera company, founded in 1955 by Richard Telfer. This society was run by its non-professional chorus with advice and support from the professional Artistic and Musical Directors and Designers it engaged. It was originally known as the Edinburgh Grand Opera Group, and it has also been referred to as Edinburgh Grand Opera Company. Its soloists were a mixture of amateur, semi-professional and professional singers from Scotland and abroad, many of whom were students or graduates from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (previously the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Dance). It was the first amateur company to perform at the Edinburgh Festival Theatre. (Full article...)

Edinburgh Napier University (Scottish Gaelic: Oilthigh Napier Dhùn Èideann) is a public university in Edinburgh, Scotland. Napier Technical College, the predecessor of the university, was founded in 1964, taking its name from 16th-century Scottish mathematician and philosopher John Napier. The technical college was inaugurated as a university in 1992 by Lord Douglas-Hamilton, becoming Napier University. In 2009, the university was renamed Edinburgh Napier University.

The university is based around its three main Edinburgh campuses: Merchiston, Craiglockhart, and Sighthill. It has over 21,000 students, including those on-campus in Scotland and others studying transnational programmes abroad and online. In 2018 this included nearly 9,500 international and EU students, from more than 140 nations worldwide. (Full article...)

The Scotland national rugby union team represents the Scottish Rugby Union in men's international rugby union. The team takes part in the annual Six Nations Championship, where they are the current Doddie Weir Cup holders. They also participate in the Rugby World Cup, which takes place every four years.

The history of the team dates from 1871, when the Scottish rugby team played their first official test match, winning 1–0 against England at Raeburn Place. Scotland competed in the Five Nations from the inaugural tournament in 1883, winning it 14 times outright—including the last Five Nations in 1999—and sharing it another eight. In 2000, the competition accepted a sixth competitor, Italy, thus forming the Six Nations. Since this change, Scotland have yet to win the competition. The Rugby World Cup was introduced in 1987 and Scotland have competed in all ten competitions, the most recent being in 2023, where they failed to reach the quarter-finals. Their best finish came in 1991, where they lost to the All Blacks in the third place play-off. (Full article...)

The Church of Scotland (CoS; Scots: The Kirk o Scotland; Scottish Gaelic: Eaglais na h-Alba) is a Presbyterian denomination of Christianity that holds the status of the national church in Scotland. It is one of the country's largest, having 245,000 members in 2024 and 259,200 members in 2023. While membership in the church has declined significantly in recent decades (in 1982 it had nearly 920,000 members), the government Scottish Household Survey concluded that 20% of the Scottish population, or over one million people, identified the Church of Scotland as their religious identity in 2019.

In the 2022 census, 20.4% of the Scottish population, or 1,108,796 adherents, identified the Church of Scotland as their religious identity. The Church of Scotland's governing system is presbyterian in its approach; therefore, no one individual or group within the church has more or less influence over church matters. There is no one person who acts as the head of faith, as the church believes that role is the "Lord God's". As a proper noun, the Kirk is an informal name for the Church of Scotland used in the media and by the church itself. (Full article...)