James Copland (3 February 1834 – 9 November 1902) was a New Zealand presbyterian minister, doctor and writer. He was born in Edinburgh, Midlothian, Scotland on 3 February 1834 and emigrated to New Zealand in 1864. He was active as a minister in Lawrence and then in North Dunedin, because he resigned from the ministry. He then practised again as a doctor and moved to Gore, where he died on 9 November 1902.^[1]

It is believed that the surveyor George John Roberts named the Copland River on the West Coast of New Zealand for Copland, with the name later adopted for an alpine pass and a glacier.^[2]