Castle Rock, a dead volcano with three sheer sides, is now in the center of Edinburgh. It first attracted inhabitants, because of the natural defensive position it afforded, in about the year 850 BC. In the 7th century, Northumbrian Angles from northeast England colonized southeast Scotland. They built their fortress on Castle Rock, which they called Edwinesburh. This fort served as the Scots' southern outpost until 1018 when King Malcolm II established a frontier at the River Tweed. Nonetheless, the English sacked the city no less than seven times in subsequent centuries. Edinburgh really began to grow in the 11th century, when markets developed at the foot of the fortress. King David I held court at the castle starting in 1134 and founded the abbey at Holyrood. The first effective town wall was constructed around 1450 and circled the Old Town and the area around Grassmarket.

Edinburgh was sacked by the English during the reign of Henry VIII. But by 1603, King James VI of Scots also became King of England and moved his court to London, reducing the importance of the city. Though cultural and intellectual life continued to flourish in Edinburgh, the Act of Union in 1707 further reduced the city's political importance, uniting the two countries under a single parliament.

After the last Jacobite rebellion under Bonnie Prince Charlie, in the second half of the 18th century, a new city was created across the ravine to the north. The population expanded and defense was no longer vital. The thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment, like Hume and Adam Smith, distanced themselves from Edinburgh's Jacobite past.

The population of the city exploded in the 19th Century, to about four hundred thousand people. Though the growth of slums have caused the usual social problems, the cultural life of Edinburgh has blossomed in the 20th Century. With the rebirth of the Scottish parliament in the 1999s, Edinburgh welcomes visitors with a new sense of purpose and self confidence.