West Linton is a village and civil parish in southerly Scotland, on the A702. It was formerly in the county of Peeblesshire, yet because local government re-organisation in the mid-1990s it is currently part of Scottish Borders. Most of its homeowners are travelers, owing to the village's proximity to Edinburgh, which is 16 miles (26 km) to the north east. West Linton has a lengthy background, and holds a yearly typical event called the Whipman Play. The town of Linton is of old origin. Its name stems from a Celtic component (cognate with the contemporary Irish Gaelic linn, Scottish Gaelic linne, and also modern-day Welsh "Llyn") implying a lake or pool, a pool in a river, or a channel (as in Loch Linnhe, part of which is called An Linne Dhubh, the black swimming pool, or Dublin, an Anglicisation of dubh and also linn, suggesting black swimming pool) and also the Gaelic "dun" Welsh "racket"), for a fortress, strengthened location, or military camp (pertaining to the contemporary English community, by way of the Saxon "tun", a farm or collection of dwellings), as well as is evidently suitable, as the town appears to have actually been bordered by lakes, swimming pools and also marshes. At once it was called Lyntoun Roderyck, identified probably with Roderyck or Riderch, King of Strathclyde, whose territory included this area, or with a neighborhood chieftain of that name. The Scottish Gaelic variation of the name is a partial translation, Ruairidh being a Gaelic type of Roderick. The prefix "West" was obtained many centuries later to make clear the distinction from East Linton in East Lothian.