Seven Scottish tourist attractions recorded more than one million visitors last year, according to new research.
Edinburgh Castle was the only paid-for attraction on the list and achieved the most visitors, with 1,568,508 people passing through in 2015 - making it the most popular overall.
The others, including Glasgow's Riverside Museum and Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum as well as the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh, are free to visit.
The National Museum of Scotland in the capital was the top free attraction, with 1,567,310 visitors.
The city's St Giles' Cathedral and Loch Lomond Shores in Balloch make up the remaining sites to pass the one million mark in the study by Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU).
Researchers at the Moffat Centre for Travel and Tourism Business Development found visits to the top 10 attractions increased by 5% in 2015, which followed a strong 2014 after Scotland hosted events such as the Commonwealth Games and the Ryder Cup.
The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, the Famous Blacksmiths Shop in Gretna Green and the Helix park in Falkirk, which features the Kelpies horse head sculptures, and the Falkirk Wheel were also in the top 10 free attractions - all welcoming more than 600,000 people.
Other top paid-for sites included Edinburgh Zoo, Edinburgh Bus Tours and Stirling Castle, Glasgow Science Centre and Urquhart Castle in Drumnadrochit.
The Royal Yacht Britannia and the Scotch Whisky Experience, both in Edinburgh, the Scottish Seabird Centre in North Berwick and Culzean Castle and Country Park in Ayrshire completed the top 10 paid-for list.
Professor John Lennon, director of the GCU centre, said: "Scotland is clearly punching above its weight in visitor attraction performance.
"It is a testament to the range and appeal of Scotland's paid and unpaid offer that we continue to attract international and domestic tourists as well as local visitors to our visitor attractions."
Why are you making commenting on HeraldScotland only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel