Four Highland landmarks have been named among Scotland’s 10 most photographed places, with Glencoe finishing ahead of every destination outside Edinburgh.

Glencoe National Nature Reserve placed third in a new ranking from photo curation app Popsa, behind only Edinburgh Castle and St Giles’ Cathedral.

The results were produced by analysing metadata from millions of customer photographs uploaded to Popsa during 2025, with each destination given a Photo Index Score based on the relative volume of pictures taken there.

Edinburgh Castle topped the table with a score of 100, followed by St Giles’ Cathedral on 48 and Glencoe on 43.

For the Highlands, however, Glencoe was only the beginning.

Eilean Donan Castle at Dornie finished eighth with a score of 20, Glenfinnan Viaduct was ninth on 18 and Urquhart Castle on Loch Ness completed the top 10 with 17.

Together they provide a pretty good explanation of why cameras rarely stay in pockets for long around the Highlands.

Glencoe brings the mountains, glacial valleys and extraordinary landscape of one of Scotland’s most recognisable places.

Eilean Donan brings a castle sitting where three sea lochs meet, with a screen career that includes Highlander and the James Bond film The World Is Not Enough.

Glenfinnan Viaduct combines Victorian engineering with its more recent fame as part of the route travelled by the Hogwarts Express in the Harry Potter films.

And then there is Urquhart Castle.

Its ruins look across Loch Ness, where centuries of stories about a certain elusive resident have ensured generations of visitors continue pointing cameras towards the water.

Edinburgh dominated the overall ranking with five entries.

Holyrood Park and Arthur’s Seat finished fourth, Calton Hill fifth and the Scott Monument seventh, while Stirling Castle took sixth place.

Liam Houghton, CEO of Popsa, said:

“Scotland has some of the most photographically compelling destinations anywhere in the UK and this data gives the clearest picture yet of where visitors are finding their most memorable shots.

“Edinburgh Castle topping the ranking with a perfect score is a reflection of just how consistently it rewards photographers at every hour of the day and in every season.

But the wider story is what’s happening beyond the capital, Glencoe, Glenfinnan, Eilean Donan and Urquhart Castle together paint a picture of a Highland photography scene that is very much finding its audience.”

There is plenty of variety among those four Highland entries.

One is a landscape shaped by ice and mountains, two have become international film locations and another sits beside perhaps the most famous stretch of freshwater in the world.

But they have something fairly obvious in common.

People see them and reach for a camera.

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