Edinburgh Castle

A historic fortress on an extinct volcano's crag, towering over Edinburgh.

A royal castle has stood here since the 11th century, in the reign of Malcolm III. It was a royal home until 1633 and later mainly a military base. It is Scotland's second most visited attraction, with about two million visitors in 2025, and it is the backdrop of the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo each summer.

A castle on a volcano

Castle Rock is made of hard rock called dolerite, left behind when a volcanic pipe cooled. When ice sheets passed over the area, the hard rock resisted wearing away, leaving steep cliffs on three sides, up to 80 metres high. The only easy way up is from the east.

The rock has a problem, though: it is almost waterproof, so water was hard to find. A well 34 metres deep was dug, but it often ran dry in droughts and sieges.

A fortress with many jobs

Over its 1,100-year history the castle has been a royal home, an arsenal, a treasury, a national archive, a mint, a prison and a military fortress. Researchers in 2014 counted 26 sieges, perhaps more than anywhere else in Great Britain.

Few buildings are older than the Lang Siege of 1573, when cannon fire destroyed most medieval defences. The castle also holds the Scottish National War Memorial.

Treasures and traditions

St Margaret's Chapel, from the early 12th century, is regarded as the oldest building in Edinburgh. Inside the castle are the Honours of Scotland, the crown jewels, which Sir Walter Scott helped rediscover in 1818.

The giant cannon Mons Meg arrived in 1457, and the One o'Clock Gun is fired from Mills Mount Battery.

On the globe

The model shows the castle on its rocky crag. Look for how steep the cliff is.