CUPAR, royal, municipal and police burgh, parish and capital of the county, Fife, Scotland, I I m. W. by S. of St. Andrews by the L.N.E.R. Pop. 4,596. It is situated on the left bank of the Eden, in the east of the Howe (Hollow) of Fife, and is sometimes termed Cupar-Fife to distinguish it from Coupar Angus in Perthshire. The Mercat cross stands at "the Cross" in the main street, where it was set up in 1897, having been removed from Hilltarvit, an eminence in the neighbourhood of Cupar, on the western slope of which, at Garliebank, the truce was signed between Mary of Guise and the lords of the Congregation. The town received its charter in 1356 from David II., and being sit uated between Falkland and St. Andrews, was constantly visited by Scottish sovereigns, James VI. holding his court there for some time in 1583. The site of the 12th-century castle, one of the strongholds of the Macduffs, thanes or earls of Fife, is occupied by a public school. On the esplanade in front of Macduff castle, still called the Playfield, took place in 1552 one of the first re corded performances of Sir David Lindsay's Ane Satyre of the Three Estaits (1540) ; his Tragedy of the Cardinal (1547), refer ring to the murder of Beaton, being also performed there.
The chief industry is the manufacture of linen, and tanning and coach-building are carried on. There is a beet-sugar factory. The town has some repute for its fine printing.
To the north-east is the parish of Dairsie, where one of the few parliaments that ever met in Fife assembled in 1335. The castle in which the senate sat was also the residence for a period of Archbishop Spottiswood, who founded the parish church in 1621. Two miles and a half north of Dairsie is situated Kilmany, which was the first charge (1803-15) of Thomas Chalmers. David Hack ston, the Covenanter, who was a passive assister at the assassi nation of Archbishop Sharp, belonged to this parish, his place being named Rathillet. After his execution at Edinburgh (168o) one of his hands was buried at Cupar, where an inscription records his death. To the west of Kilmany lies Creich, where Alexander Henderson (1583-1646), the Covenanting divine and diplomatist, and John Sage (1652-1711), the non-juring archbishop of Glas gow, were born. In the upper Old Red Sandstone of Dura Den, a ravine on Ceres burn, 21 m. E. of Cupar, have been found great quantities of fossils of ganoid fishes.