Current ranking based on review analysis and technical signals.
How we chose: 10 places selected by rating and number of reviews. Source — Google Places. Updated 04 August 2026.
At a glance
| # | Place | Score | Reviews | Stands out for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Princes Street Gardens | ⭐ 9.5 | 27 141 | Editors' pick |
| 2 | Holyrood Park | ⭐ 9.7 | 12 814 | People's favorite |
| 3 | The Meadows | ⭐ 9.5 | 7 549 | — |
| 4 | Pentland Hills Regional Park | ⭐ 9.7 | 2 856 | — |
| 5 | Dalkeith Country Park | ⭐ 9.3 | 2 080 | — |
| 6 | Inverleith Park | ⭐ 9.5 | 2 036 | — |
| 7 | Harrison Park West | ⭐ 9.3 | 1 658 | — |
| 8 | Saughton Park & Gardens | ⭐ 9.5 | 1 453 | — |
| 9 | Figgate Park | ⭐ 9.3 | 1 299 | — |
| 10 | East Meadows Play Park | ⭐ 9.3 | 1 231 | — |
Highlights
-
Editors' pick:
Princes Street Gardens -
People's favorite:
Holyrood Park
Opening hours
Open around the clock: The Meadows, Pentland Hills Regional Park, Inverleith Park, Harrison Park West, Figgate Park, East Meadows Play Park.
Open late: The Meadows, Pentland Hills Regional Park, Inverleith Park, Harrison Park West, Figgate Park, East Meadows Play Park.
Open early, from 8am or sooner: Princes Street Gardens, The Meadows, Pentland Hills Regional Park, Dalkeith Country Park, Inverleith Park, Harrison Park West, Figgate Park, East Meadows Play Park.
Check the hours before you set out — they shift on holidays and out of season.
Full ranking
1. Princes Street Gardens · ⭐ 9.5
(27141 reviews)
+7 photos
Princes St., Edinburgh EH2 2HG, United Kingdom
Few city parks have a stranger beginning. For three hundred years this ground lay under water: the Nor Loch, an artificial sheet dug as a defence along the northern flank of the Old Town, which slowly became the place where everything the tenements above wanted rid of ended up. Drain it, level it, plant it, and you get what is here now — a long green trough running below the Ca…
«A wonderful place in the city centre for relaxing, a picnic, a walk, socialising, photo sh…»
2. Holyrood Park · ⭐ 9.7
(12814 reviews)
+7 photos
Queen's Dr, Edinburgh EH8 8HG, United Kingdom
No other European capital keeps a 251-metre extinct volcano inside its boundary and treats it as an ordinary park. Holyrood Park covers some 650 acres (260 ha) of hill, crag, bog and loch barely a mile east of Edinburgh Castle, and its skyline — the lion-shaped bulk of Arthur's Seat with the sheer red-brown wall of Salisbury Crags in front of it — is visible from half the city.…
«These are the ruins of a former volcano. the volcano was destroyed by a glacier. gorgeous…»
3. The Meadows · ⭐ 9.5
(7549 reviews)
+7 photos
Melville Dr, Edinburgh EH9 1ND, United Kingdom
The Meadows is not a designed park so much as a survival. Sixty-three acres of flat green grass south of the Old Town, it was once a loch, then a drained marsh, then the town's grazing and drying ground, and it has stayed open because generations of Edinburgh citizens refused to let anyone build on it. Legally it is common good land, held for the community itself and merely man…
«We were incredibly lucky to visit the Meadows park at the weekend, where the annual Meadow…»
4. Pentland Hills Regional Park · ⭐ 9.7
(2856 reviews)
+7 photos
Flotterstone EH26 0PP, United Kingdom
Most capital cities have to send you a long way for mountains. Edinburgh sends you south for half an hour. The Pentland Hills roll away from the city's southern suburbs in a chain about twenty miles (32 km) long, and the regional park protects some thirty-five square miles (91 km²) of that upland: grassy summits over 570 metres, deep glens holding a string of reservoirs, workin…
«A wonderful large park for walking or cycling with different trails by difficulty and leng…»
5. Dalkeith Country Park · ⭐ 9.3
(2080 reviews)
+7 photos
Via Town Gate, Dalkeith EH22 2NA, United Kingdom
Ten minutes beyond Edinburgh's southern edge, the ground drops into a wooded bowl where two rivers meet, and a thousand-acre private estate quietly opens its gates to the public. Dalkeith Country Park has belonged to the Buccleuch family since 1642, and it still looks like what it is: a designed aristocratic landscape of parkland, avenues, a Robert Adam bridge and an early clas…
«Such a wonderful park. Paid £6 for the car park and spent the day there. There's a restaur…»
6. Inverleith Park · ⭐ 9.5
(2036 reviews)
+7 photos
Edinburgh EH3 5PA, United Kingdom
Few city parks hand you this much sky. Inverleith Park spreads across roughly 22 hectares (54 acres) of level grass, tree-lined avenues and playing fields between Stockbridge and the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, and the first thing most arrivals do is stop and look south. The whole Old Town skyline stands on the horizon, Edinburgh Castle on its rock with Arthur's Seat rising…
«A lovely park and wonderful views of the city of Edinburgh. I find these views so calming…»
7. Harrison Park West · ⭐ 9.3
(1658 reviews)
+6 photos
42 Harrison Gardens, Edinburgh EH11 1SG, United Kingdom
Harrison Park is the green heart of Polwarth and Shandon, a tenement district a mile and a half south-west of the city centre, and its western half is the part locals mean when they say they are "going to the park". The Union Canal glides along the boundary, so the soundtrack is swans rather than traffic; inside, the ground is laid out as plain, useful greenspace — full-size an…
«It's a beautiful, calming park, I could sit by a bench for hours, admiring the green views…»
8. Saughton Park & Gardens · ⭐ 9.5
(1453 reviews)
+7 photos
Saughton Public Park, Balgreen Rd, Edinburgh EH11 3BQ, United Kingdom
Saughton Park is the most complete piece of historic public gardening in west Edinburgh, and since a multi-million-pound restoration finished at the end of the 2010s it looks the part again. Inside a walled garden that began life as the private grounds of a mansion sit a formal rose garden, a physic garden laid out around the human body, herbaceous borders planted in their thou…
«I've lived in Saughton all my life and have visited this park since childhood. I've never…»
9. Figgate Park · ⭐ 9.3
(1299 reviews)
+7 photos
Mountcastle Dr N, Edinburgh EH8 7SE, United Kingdom
Figgate Park is a green ribbon almost exactly a kilometre long, laid out along the course of the Figgate Burn as it makes its final run from Duddingston down to the sea at Portobello. It is a park with a job to do: woodland, hedge, meadow, burn and a large pond packed into a narrow strip, holding together a wildlife corridor through a dense eastern suburb. Kingfishers work the…
«A really nice place for walking the dog. In the park you can see a lot of wildlife, as wel…»
10. East Meadows Play Park · ⭐ 9.3
(1231 reviews)
+7 photos
Melville Dr, Edinburgh EH8 9LW, United Kingdom
Officially it is the Magnet play area, and it is the largest and busiest children's playground in central Edinburgh: some forty separate items of play spread across nearly five thousand square metres at the eastern end of the Meadows, with well over three hundred visitors on an ordinary day. What makes it more than a big set of swings is where it sits. The Meadows is a flat gre…
«A wonderful big park in the middle of the city, ideal for walks and meeting friends during…»
Questions & answers
Which place tops the ranking? Princes Street Gardens — score 9.5/10 (Editors' pick).
How many places are in the list and how were they chosen? The selection includes 10 places chosen by our editors based on rating and reviews.
What is the average rating in the top? 9.5/10 — average score of 10 places in the list.
Which place has the most reviews? Princes Street Gardens — 27141 visitor reviews.
See also:
Best flower shops
Sources: Google ratings and reviews, official websites and social media of the places, other open data. Selection and texts by the edinburghname.com editorial team, August 2026.