Launch of the Edinburgh Cultural Map

Edinburgh’s Cultural Map, created through a series of public participatory workshops in 2019 by the Culture and Communities Mapping Project, is now live to the public.  

The map displays a dataset of over 1,300 cultural spaces across the city. Users can see these spaces in the context of local communities and modes of transport. Through the map’s layers, users can explore festival sites, street art, public sculpture, waterways, bike paths, bus stops, sites with accessible toilets, the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation, and cultural spaces linked to Edinburgh’s colonial past. 

The map gives visitors a diverse perspective of Edinburgh’s rich cultural life, one that looks beyond high-profile institutions and tourist hubs. The project’s primary investigator, Dr Morgan Currie (School of Social and Political Science), hopes that this new resource will have a significant impact for Edinburgh’s communities: 

This map came out of a series of mapping workshops asking participants what types of cultural spaces they want on the map and which ones they value the most. We’re hoping the map can help people get to know the diversity of culture across the city, including what’s in their own neighbourhoods, and also move the city towards a more equitable spread of cultural resources.