Caledonian Mercury was the name of a Scottish newspaper, published three times a week between 1720–1867. In 1725, during the Scottish Malt Tax riots, rival political factions attempted to use newspapers like the Caledonian Mercury as their "mouthpieces", as a letter from Andrew Millar to Robert Wodrow illustrates. The Caledonian Mercury, like its competitor The Edinburgh Evening Courant, was published thrice weekly from 1720. It was less prestigious than the Courant, largely because it was sold by a politically-motivated bookseller and because its editors did not include recent news from elsewhere in Britain and Europe. Numbers published from 1800 on are available online for registered users of the National Library of Scotland website. In its final years it was published by Thomas Allan & Co from 265 High Street, on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh.
Historical copies of the Caledonian Mercury, dating back to 1720, are available to search and view in digitized form at The British Newspaper Archive.
Currently it is a Scottish online newspaper taking its name after its printed predecessor and the even earlier Mercurius Caledonius (1660–1661). Set up by Stewart Kirkpatrick (formerly responsible for The Scotsman website), Graham Jones and Tony Purcell, it launched late at night on 24 January 2010. It is supposed to "rarely cover breaking news, concentrating on analytical, discursive reporting".