Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
EDINBURGH &
GLASGOW IN
2
DEPTH
Edinburgh and Glasgow are the principal cities in
Scotland: The majority of the country's five million
people live in or around these two cities—each is
home to a population of between 500,000 and 600,000
within city limits. The country itself occupies the northern
third of Great Britain, covering about 78,725 sq. km (30,410
sq. miles)—or nearly the size of Austria. It is about 440km
(275 miles) long and 248km (154 miles) wide at its widest
point. As it is a modestly sized country, its two main cities
are both key players in the nation's economy.
Both cities are on tidal tributaries to the sea, but across Scotland no
denizen lives more than about 65km (40 miles) from salt water. Notwith-
standing the size of their country, the Scots have extended their influence
around the world.
Inventors Alexander Graham Bell (telephone) and John Logie Baird
(television), as well as Africa explorers Mungo Park and David Living-
stone, came from Scotland. Philosophers David Hume (law) and Adam
Smith (economics) were key participants in the Scottish Enlightenment,
which was based in Glasgow and Edinburgh. James Watt (steam engine
pioneer) and John Muir (the world's first ecologist) were born near the
two key cities. This country also gave the world entrepreneur Andrew
Carnegie; poet Robert Burns; actors Sean Connery and Ewan McGregor;
comedians Billy Connolly and Frankie Boyle; bands Belle & Sebastian
and Franz Ferdinand, and singers Sheena Easton, Annie Lennox, and
Shirley Manson. Edinburgh spawned novelists Sir Walter Scott and Rob-
ert Louis Stevenson, while Glasgow was home to architects Alexander
“Greek” Thomson and Charles Rennie Mackintosh.
