FIFESHIRE is an extensive and populous maritime county in the east of Scotland; it is a peninsula, having the Firth of Forth on the south, the German Ocean on the east, and the Firth of Tay on the north, which river separates it from Forfarshire and Perthshire. Its western border is very irregular ; commencing at Newburgh, on the Tay, it follows that of Perthshire south to near Auchtermuchty, turning west as far as Damhead, whence it extends with Kinross south to the Leven and west nearly as far as Humbling Brig, when the Perthshire border again commences and is continued southwards to the Firth of Forth at Torry.
The coast line is about 80 miles in extent; the breadth from its eastern apex to its western point, where it intersects Kinross and Perth, is about 35 miles, and a line direct south from Newport on the Tay to Earlsferry is about 17 miles, and one from Newburgh to Kinghorn 20 miles; towards the west, however (from Burntisland to the verge of Kinross-shire), it is not more than 10 mile across; the extreme length, from north-east to south-west, in a curved line, is fully 40 miles. The regularity of its figure is much interrupted by the intrusion of Kinross-shire, which creates a considerate indentation, not far from its centre, on the west.
The area comprises 322,844 acres of land and 1,624 of water. In regard to size, this county is sixteenth, and in population the seventh. In 1891 the population was 187.346 and in 1901, 218,840, viz.: males 105.124; females, 113,716; the inhabited houses being 40,696 in 1891 and in 1901, inhabited 18,241; uninhabited 3,868; building, 585.
