Where to live in Edinburgh and the Lothians

City of EdinburghCentral

The most complete piece of Georgian town planning in Europe, and — unlike Bath's — a working commercial district rather than a museum. The financial quarter, the tram and the best restaurants in the city are all inside it, and so are the highest rents in Scotland.

City of EdinburghCentral

A medieval street plan on a volcanic ridge, entirely within a World Heritage Site, with Waverley station at the bottom of it. Living here means living inside the thing everyone else has come to look at, which is remarkable for about a year and then becomes a logistics problem every August.

City of EdinburghCentral

Five roads meeting at a clock, with the Meadows on one side, the art college on another and more late licences than anywhere outside the Cowgate. Tollcross is where the Old Town's noise gives way to somewhere people actually live.

City of EdinburghInner

Tucked between Calton Hill, Holyrood Park and the railway, ten minutes' walk from Waverley and considerably quieter than anywhere at a comparable distance. The rebuilt Meadowbank sports centre anchors the eastern end.

City of EdinburghInner

The cheapest tenements within walking distance of the city centre, with Haymarket at one end and Tynecastle in the middle. Gorgie and Dalry are where people move when they want Edinburgh and cannot pay New Town prices, which is most people.

City of EdinburghInner

A separate burgh until 1920 and it has never quite conceded the point. The Shore has more Michelin stars than the rest of Scotland put together, the tram extension finally arrived in 2023, and the argument about what Leith is becoming has been running for thirty years without resolution.

City of EdinburghInner

The mile of road connecting the New Town to Leith, and the densest concentration of independent shops, cafés and small restaurants in the city. The tram works now, which after eight years of construction is still slightly surprising to everyone who lives there.

City of EdinburghInner

High Victorian tenements in blond and red sandstone, arranged around the Meadows and Bruntsfield Links. It is the most sought-after student and postgraduate area in Scotland, and the flats are large enough that a share here is genuinely comfortable rather than merely cheap.

City of EdinburghInner

A mile of high street with a Dominion cinema at one end and Blackford Hill behind it, surrounded by the largest and best-kept Victorian villas in the city. Morningside is the address Edinburgh families aim for and it has the accent to prove it.

City of EdinburghInner

South of the Meadows with Arthur's Seat behind it and the university's main campus at its northern end. Newington is the most practical inner-city choice in Edinburgh: everything walkable, every bus route, and slightly less student pressure than Marchmont.

City of EdinburghInner

Down the hill from the New Town on the Water of Leith, with the Botanics at one end, Inverleith Park behind and a Sunday market on the green. Stockbridge has been the city's most desirable village for forty years and shows no sign of stopping.

City of EdinburghOuter

A village in a wooded dell with the Water of Leith running through it, and the Pentland Hills rising directly behind. Colinton is the greenest part of Edinburgh; Oxgangs beside it is the plainer and considerably cheaper half.

City of EdinburghOuter

An old village absorbed by the city, with Corstorphine Hill and the zoo behind it and the tram running past the end of the road. It is the obvious answer for anyone working at Edinburgh Park, the Gyle or the airport, and priced well below the equivalent on the south side.

City of EdinburghOuter

The cheapest rents in Edinburgh, and twenty years into a regeneration programme that has rebuilt most of the housing stock. The Royal Infirmary and the BioQuarter are next door, which is the single largest employment site in the south of the city.

City of EdinburghOuter

A Roman fort, a tidal island you can walk to twice a day and the Forth on your doorstep. Cramond is the quietest and safest part of Edinburgh, and Davidson's Mains next door supplies the shops it does not have.

City of EdinburghOuter

The waterfront north of the city, and the largest regeneration site in Scotland — the tram terminus arrived at Newhaven in 2023 and several thousand homes are being built behind it. Cheap, changing fast, and with a view across the Forth to Fife.

City of EdinburghOuter

South Edinburgh on the way to Midlothian, with the Royal Infirmary and the BioQuarter close and a great deal of new housing going up around them. Ordinary, well-connected and among the cheapest places left inside the city.

East LothianOuter

The Honest Toun, six miles east of Edinburgh with its own racecourse, its own high street and the Esk running through it. Close enough to be a suburb, old enough not to behave like one, and cheaper than any part of Edinburgh at a comparable journey time.

City of EdinburghOuter

Edinburgh has a beach, and this is it — two miles of sand, a Victorian promenade and a genuine Turkish baths, twenty-five minutes from Waverley on the bus. Portobello has become the city's most fashionable outer suburb without losing the seaside-town feel that made it one.

City of EdinburghOuter

West Edinburgh, built around an industrial estate and a college, with the tram and Edinburgh Park station at the western end. It is plain and it is cheap, and for anyone working at Edinburgh Park or the Gyle it is the shortest commute in the city.

West LothianFringe

A former shale-oil and motor-manufacturing town on the Edinburgh–Glasgow line, with four trains an hour to each city and the lowest rents covered anywhere in this section. The economy has never fully replaced what closed in the 1980s.

MidlothianFringe

One of the fastest-growing towns in Scotland, built out steadily since the Borders Railway reopened. Quiet, safe, comprehensively residential, and the standard answer for families priced out of south Edinburgh.

West LothianFringe

Two shale-oil villages that grew together, closer to Edinburgh than anywhere else in West Lothian and half an hour from the airport by bus. Plain, cheap and better positioned than its profile suggests.

MidlothianFringe

Midlothian's county town, with Dalkeith Country Park behind the palace and Eskbank station on the Borders Railway a short walk away. The reopened line in 2015 changed this town's relationship with Edinburgh completely.

East LothianFringe

The sunniest town in Scotland by recorded hours, with a working harbour, John Muir's birthplace and a station on the East Coast Main Line — which means a direct train to London as well as a twenty-five-minute run into Edinburgh.

East LothianFringe

The county town of East Lothian, a well-preserved market town on the Tyne with more listed buildings per head than almost anywhere in Scotland. The railway closed in 1949 and the X6 has been carrying the load ever since.

West LothianFringe

A royal burgh with a ruined palace on a loch, a canal and one of the best rail positions in Scotland — twenty minutes to Edinburgh in one direction and twenty-five to Glasgow in the other. It is the obvious answer for a household split between the two cities.

West LothianFringe

Scotland's fourth new town, designed in the 1960s around a shopping centre and a set of self-contained villages, and now the largest town in the Lothians outside Edinburgh. Two stations, a large employment base of its own and rents a third below the city.

East LothianFringe

A Victorian seaside town with two beaches, the Bass Rock offshore and a branch line to Edinburgh. It is the most expensive place in East Lothian by a wide margin and one of the most desirable small towns in Scotland, which are the same fact stated twice.

MidlothianFringe

A former papermaking town at the foot of the Pentlands, ten miles south of Edinburgh with the hills rising immediately behind it. The railway closed in 1967 and the bus down the A701 has carried it ever since.

East LothianFringe

A former mining and salt-panning town on the Forth, with a station that reaches Edinburgh in twelve minutes and rents that belong to a different region. The old power station site next door is being redeveloped, which will change the town's edge substantially.