Auld Reekie earned its smoky nickname before Athens of the North
Country folk called Edinburgh Auld Reekie for the reek hanging over tenement chimneys. From the early eighteen hundreds another nickname stuck: Athens of the North, pairing Castle Rock with the Acropolis and Scottish Enlightenment reason with ancient Greek philosophy.
The root Edin comes from Cumbric Eidyn, a district whose stronghold Din Eidyn likely sat on Castle Rock. Oswald of Northumbria's siege in six hundred thirty-eight opened centuries of Anglian influence before the place passed to the Scots around nine hundred fifty-four; Brittonic din became English burh, yielding Edinburgh, while Gaelic keeps Dun Eideann. Mesolithic camp traces at Cramond date to about eighty-five hundred BC. King David I founded the royal burgh in the early twelfth century; a charter of about eleven twenty-four to eleven twenty-seven already names Edenesburg.
Recognised as Scotland's capital since at least the fifteenth century, the city houses government, Parliament, the high courts, and Holyroodhouse. The University of Edinburgh began with a fifteen eighty-two royal charter as Tounis College. In the Global Financial Centres Index of twenty twenty it ranked second in the United Kingdom, fourth in Europe, and thirteenth worldwide. UNESCO lists Old Town and Georgian New Town together as a World Heritage Site managed since nineteen ninety-nine; in twenty twenty-three some five point three million visits included two point four million from overseas.
Seventeenth-century walls forced growth upward: eleven-storey tenements were common enough to be called skyscraper forerunners, and a sixteen eleven act created the High Constables, often cited as the world's oldest statutory police force. Population in twenty twenty was five hundred six thousand five hundred twenty in the city and nine hundred twelve thousand four hundred ninety in the wider metro, second in Scotland only to Glasgow. From Din Eidyn's rock to festival crowds on the Fringe, the same ridge still organises Scotland's capital.
Source: Edinburgh
