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Home of the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, The Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, The British Museum and more British Icons, London is a world center of theatre, art, music, literature, and culture. It's also a city of colorful markets, great shopping, green open spaces, and a cosmopolitan culture.
London is home to 7.5 million people, or 12.5 per cent of the UK's population. Not counting visitors, more than 1.5 million Londoners come from abroad. They speak 300 different languages. On top of its cosmopolitan locals, London welcomes more than 25 million visitors a year through its five airports, national rail stations, and Eurostar terminal, the gateway to the continent.
Scotland's capital and the seat of its Parliament, Edinburgh combines the young and modern sensibilities of a great university city and national capital with a historic and dramatic setting. Here you'll find the world's biggest performing arts festival, a 1,000-year-old castle and a mountain - Arthur's Seat - right in the middle of town. And, Edinburgh's annual New Year's celebration - Hogmanay - is a four-day street party to end all street parties.
From the end of June through to early September, Edinburgh reels through one festival after another. Film, books, art, music, television and jazz, the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo, and the Edinburgh International Festival are just some of the summer festivals. But the big event is the world-famous Edinburgh Fringe, a free-for-all of drama, music, comedy and street theater that veers wildly from brilliant to dire and that takes over the whole city for most of August.
Come winter and Edinburgh folks are ready to party again, staging the world's biggest New Year's celebration, Hogmanay. The torchlight parades, fire festival events, concerts, funfairs, and winter swims go on for four days.
Edinburgh has about half a million people, including more than 62,000 university students. At least 13 million people visit every year. During the main festival month of August, the population of Edinburgh swells by more than one million, making it, temporarily, the UK's second-largest city.