What is the name of the whole city which lies underneath Edinburgh?

Question

ive been told that there is a city which lies underneath Edinburgh and Ive been told about another city which is also underneath a city in Japan or China (a really modern one) do you know any of their names so I google it?

Answer 1

Best Answer - Chosen by Voters

I think you mean the vaults & Mary King's Close.

In the 18th century, with the Old Town of Edinburgh becoming barely habitable due to overcrowding, the local council began development of the New Town. The access from the Old Town to the New Town was made possible with the building of the North Bridge and access to the city was then improved when the South Bridge was built. There are 2 vaults tours available: Edinburgh Vaults Walking Tour and Edinburgh Underground Night Walking Tour.

The South Bridge consisted of 19 arches built over the Cowgate ravine, back in the late 18th century. At the time when the bridge was built the land under it had been excavated to make chambers and both large and small rooms -- The Edinburgh Vaults.

The vaults were used mostly by merchants and craftsmen that had businesses on South Bridge for storing wine, dairy and other products and were guarded by underground caretakers. Families also lived in some of the rooms of these vaults but with no sunlight or ventilation and with the issue of waste disposal, these vaults were barely habitable.

Some local legends suggest that the vaults could have been used for something else other than storing goods. Burke and Hare, the notorious body snatchers could have brought their victims underground before selling them to the nearby hospital but no evidence has been found.

The vaults in Old Town Edinburgh were not properly waterproofed and soon became uninhabitable. They were then filled and their existence erased from public records.

Two hundred years later they were discovered and excavations started to bring light to these long forgotten chambers. Soon after, the Edinburgh Vaults opened for tourists and many of today's local ghost tours companies regularly include them in their tours

During Christmas 1645 the plague, probably brought by ship from Europe via the port of Leith, and spread by fleas carried on black rats, erupted across the land. It took hold first in Edinburgh, then spread west and north, and over the following 18 months killed a substantial part of the Scottish population.

Despite the myth, victims were not walled up in the closes and left to starve. In fact, there had been a long tradition of organized quarantine in the town. Over many previous outbreaks, those infected with the plague enclosed themselves in their house and indicated their plight by displaying a small white flag from the window. In response, bread, ale, coal and even wine were delivered to them daily, and a plague doctor would visit to drain bubos - the pus-filled lymph nodes, which threatened to rupture and kill the patient through septicaemia. Some people were quarantined in wooden huts or ‘ludges’, outside the town at Sciennes, Boroughmuir, or in the King’s Park, for anything from two to six weeks or until death, whichever came the soonest.

With the limited and often downright dangerous medical treatments of the time, doctors could do very little to help. Like others, they would have worn herb-filled, beak-like, masks to try to protect themselves; but many died. John Paulitious, Edinburgh’s first official plague doctor, was one such victim. However, the risks were not without compensation. Paulitious' salary had risen from £40, first to £80, and then to an incredible £100 Scots a month by the time his successor, Dr George Rae, replaced him on 13 June 1645.

Dr Rae dressed from head to toe in a thick leather mask, cloak and gloves when visiting plague victims. At the time, it was believed the plague was spread by miasma - what was thought to be 'bad air' - and the doctor's cloak was designed to prevent miasma from reaching his skin. It has since been shown that the plague was actually spread by flea bites, and that the leather prevented fleas from the patients biting the doctor.

By November, Dr Rae had negotiated a further £10 Scots per month but by the autumn of 1646 the worst was over in Edinburgh, though it took longer elsewhere and the Council had second thoughts about paying him. Ten years after this, the last major outbreak of the "foul pestilence" in Scotland, George Rae was still fighting to be paid. He eventually won and claimed an unprecedented yearly pension of £1,200 Scots.

Mary King's Close today
Mary King's Close was re-opened to the public in April 2003. Now a commercial tourist attraction, it is being displayed as a historically accurate example of life in Edinburgh between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Mary King's Close is also the organisation which funds and manages the annual Mary King's Ghost Fest in Edinburgh. This unique and popular award winning, 10 day city wide festival has become a regular favourite on the Edinburgh festival circuit with its strange and quirky events attracting visitors from throughout Scotland, the U.K. and overseas in May each year. This unusual, off-peak festival sets out to explore and uncover more about the dark tales and strange paranormal activity for which Edinburgh is internationally renowned.

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Answer 2

It's basically just Edinburgh, it has no other name. In the old town, buildings were built on buildings. Sometimes what you walk along now is actually a bridge, but you would think you are at ground level.
There are many parts to it that are accessable in deep basements, but the main one that is open to the public is Mary King's Close. I believe the best areas are those deep under the City Chambers, but this isn't open to the public.
Not got a clue about any in China or Japan

Source(s):

Live in Edinburgh
http://www.realmarykingsclose.com/

Answer 3

KenR has given you a good answer. Is the other city perhaps Seattle rather than anywhere in the Far East? I seem to remember that ground levels were altered there after a major fire leaving 'underground streets'

Answer 4

There is no other city underneath edinburgh, although the place is that depressing and backwards you would think edinburgh itself was an underground town.