The Old Town of Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It has preserved its medieval plan and many Reformation-era buildings. One end is closed by the castle and the main artery, the Royal Mile, actually made up of four distinct streets named Castlehill, the Lawnmarket, the High Street and the Canongate, leads away from it, down to the now-ruined Holyrood Abbey. Narrow closes (alleyways), often no more than a few feet wide, lead downhill on either side of the main spine in a herringbone pattern. Large squares mark the location of markets or surround major public buildings such as St Giles Cathedral and the supreme courts.

Other notable places include the Scottish Parliament Building, the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the General Assembly Hall of the Church of Scotland, the Royal Museum of Scotland, Surgeons' Hall, the University of Edinburgh, and numerous underground streets and vaults, relics of previous phases of construction. The street layout, typical of the old quarters of many northern European cities, is made especially picturesque in Edinburgh, where the castle perches on top of a rocky crag, the remnants of an extinct volcano, and the main street runs down the crest of a ridge from it.