Birlinn Limited is an independent publishing house based in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was established in 1992 by managing director Hugh Andrew.^[2][3]

Birlinn Limited is composed of a number of imprints, including:

• Birlinn, which publishes Scottish interest books, from biography to history, military history and Scottish Gaelic. (Its name comes from the old Norse word birlinn, meaning a long boat or small galley with 12 to 18 oars, used especially in the Hebrides and West Highlands of Scotland in the Middle Ages.^[4])
• Polygon Books, which publishes literary fiction and poetry, both classic and modern, from Scottish writers such as Robin Jenkins, George Mackay Brown, and the author of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, Alexander McCall Smith. It was founded in the late 1960s by students of the University of Edinburgh.^[5]
• Mercat Press, founded in 1970 and acquired by Birlinn in 2007, which publishes walking and climbing guides. (Mercat is the Scots language word for "market" or "trade".^[6])
• John Donald, publishing academic books about Scotland.

• Alexander McCall Smith^[7]
  • Love in the Time of Bertie (2021)
  • The People's City (2022)
• Martin C. Strong^[8]
  • The Great Folk Discography, Vol. 1: Pioneers & Early Legends (2010)
  • The Great Folk Discography, Vol. 2: The Next Generation (2011)
• Andy Wightman
  • The Poor Had No Lawyers (Third Edition, 2015)^[9]