[3] The constituency is largely composed of leafy Victorian townhousing based around the suburbs of Newington, Morningside, Craiglockhart, Blackford and Merchiston, with some social housing in parts of Prestonfield and Liberton.

Edinburgh Southern has a colourful mix of political traditions, with the equivalent Edinburgh South constituency at Westminster being represented by the Conservatives until being won by Labour's Nigel Griffiths in 1987.

It has since returned Labour MPs, becoming Labour's only Scottish constituency at Westminster in 2015 following a landslide election for the Scottish National Party, who took 56 of 59 Westminster constituencies in Scotland.

At the Scottish Parliament, Edinburgh South returned a Labour constituency MSP in 1999, voting Liberal Democrat in both 2003 and 2007 before being narrowly won by the SNP in 2011.

In 2016, it became Labour's only constituency seat gain at the Scottish Parliament, despite the fact that the Conservative Party had the largest share of the vote on the regional list vote in the constituency.