Edinburgh UNESCO City of Literature

What makes this UNESCO Designation special?

For over 20 years, Edinburgh City of Literature Trust has helped grow a global network of international literary cities, for the benefit of writers and literature professionals, bringing opportunities for paid commissions, supporting creative practice and broadening networks.

Over this time, this Creative City has worked with more than 250 partners to deliver approximately 300 stand-alone and multi-session events and projects, reaching an audience of at least 325,000 and millions more through its on-street installations and online programmes, and look to continue to do more.

Readers and writers across Scotland have benefited from our projects. This creative city has broken down barriers and changed people’s views of literature with its Robert Louis Stevenson Day and citywide reading campaigns. They've transformed their urban public spaces using literature by inscribing the words of Scottish authors into the city’s walls and pavements, projecting poetry onto Edinburgh Castle rock and covering the world’s only railway station named after an author's work with his writing and poetry.