Edinburgh is the capital of Scotland, the largest city by area and the second largest by population in the country. Edinburgh lies on the east coast of the Central Belt, along the Firth of Forth, near the North Sea. The city was at the heart of the Scottish Enlightenment. Edinburgh became a major cultural centre, earning it the nickname Athens of the North because of the Greco-Roman style of the New Town's architecture, as well as the rise of the Scottish intellectual elite who were increasingly leading both Scottish and European intellectual thought.