Walter MacFarlane or MacFarlan (died 8 June 1767) was a Scottish antiquarian and 20th chief of the Clan MacFarlane.^[1]

MacFarlane was the second son of John MacFarlan of Arrochar (d. 1705), chief of clan MacFarlane, and Helen (d. 1741), daughter of Robert, 2nd Viscount of Arbuthnott.^[2] His date of birth is uncertain: he is known to have been under twenty-one in 1709, so was certainly born after 1689, and possibly not long before the death of his father in 1705, when he succeeded as chief of Clan MacFarlane.^[2]

He was the author of a number of "collections", among them multi-volume genealogical works. His Geographical Collections relating to Scotland, a work in three volumes that collected historical, geographical, and folkloristic information dating from 1600 to 1730.^[3] MacFarlane had gathered much of the material in 1748–49;^[4] it was published posthumously by the Scottish History Society in 1906, edited by Arthur Mitchell.^[1] The work included a large number of observations recorded by Robert Sibbald, who had attempted a methodical survey of Scotland's parishes.^[5]