West Linton is a village and also civil parish in southern Scotland, on the A702. It was previously in the county of Peeblesshire, but given that local government re-organisation in the mid-1990s it is currently part of Scottish Borders. Much of its residents are travelers, owing to the village's closeness to Edinburgh, which is 16 miles (26 km) to the north eastern. West Linton has a long history, and holds a yearly standard festival called the Whipman Play. The town of Linton is of old beginning. Its name originates from a Celtic aspect (cognate with the modern Irish Gaelic linn, Scottish Gaelic linne, and modern-day Welsh "Llyn") indicating 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) as well as the Gaelic "dun" Welsh "hullabaloo"), for a citadel, fortified location, or army camp (pertaining to the contemporary English community, using the Saxon "tun", a ranch or collection of houses), as well as is evidently ideal, as the town shows up to have been surrounded by lakes, swimming pools as well as marshes. At once it was known as Lyntoun Roderyck, identified maybe with Roderyck or Riderch, King of Strathclyde, whose region included this area, or with a local chieftain of that name. The Scottish Gaelic version of the place name is a partial translation, Ruairidh being a Gaelic type of Roderick. The prefix "West" was acquired numerous centuries later to clear up the difference from East Linton in East Lothian.