Although there has been residential and commercial development on its lower slopes, especially in the south and west, most of the hill is occupied by a local nature reserve, consisting of extensive broadleaf woodland, accessible to the public.

Corstorphine Hill is located approximately 5 kilometres (3.1 miles) west of Edinburgh's city centre.

[1] It is surrounded by residential suburbs, in particular by Barnton and Davidson's Mains to the north, Blackhall and Murrayfield to the east, Clerwood and Clermiston to the west, and Corstorphine to the south.

It appears as a long, low, L-shaped ridge, extending about 2.4 kilometres (1.5 miles) in length from north to south and rising to 161 metres (528 feet).

Other buildings on the hill include Fox Covert Primary School,[4] two large hotels (Capital Moat House and Holiday Inn), St Andrew's Clermiston Church,[5] St Anne's Parish Church[6] and the Spire Murrayfield Hospital.

The hill was shaped by west-to-east flowing glaciers during the Pleistocene period, forming steep cliffs of doleritic bedrock in the west and gentle slopes of boulder clay in the east.

[17] The 215 kilometres (133.6 miles) John Muir Way long-distance path crosses the hill on the section of its route between South Queensferry and Edinburgh.