While there’s still a bank holiday on the first Monday of May, there are no longer the celebrations that used to be part of the calendar for residents of Scotland’s Capital.
Arthur’s Seat was the centre of May Day, with crowds attending a religious service taking place at the summit each year.
Meanwhile, tradition says that if you get up early and wash your face in the morning dew on on Arthur’s Seat on May Day you will benefit from a flawless complexion for the rest of the year.
The practice still takes place to a lesser extent today, but 50 years ago it saw scores of young women make the ascent at first light.
Processions would often take place on Princes Street, while the day was also popular with campaigners looking for publicity for their cause.
More recently the Beltane Fire Festival has held on the evening of May eve and into the early hours of May Day on the city's Calton Hill.
Here are 20 pictures to take you back to May Day in Edinburgh over half a century ago.
9. Demonstrating
Lochgelly youths display the placards they carried in the May Day procession in Edinburgh in 1959. Photo: Unknown
10. Gathering crowds
A view of crowds on Arthur's Seat at the May Day Sunrise Service in 1964. Photo: Stan Warburton
11. VIPs
Abe Moffat and long-serving MP Barbara Castle at Edinburgh's Miners' May Day Gala in 1956. Photo: Unknown
12. Let us pray
The May Day service at Arthur's Seat, led by Reverend Selby Wright, in 1964. Photo: Unknown