Scottish Towns-Cities. St Andrews.

St Andrews (Latin: S. Andrea(s); Scots: Saunt Aundraes; Scottish Gaelic: Cill Rìmhinn) is a town on the east coast of Fife in Scotland, 10 miles (16 kilometres) southeast of Dundee and 30 miles (50 kilometres) northeast of Edinburgh. St Andrews had a recorded population of 16,800 as of 2011, making it Fife’s fourth largest settlement and 45th most populous settlement in Scotland.

The town is home to the University of St Andrews, the third oldest university in the English-speaking world and the oldest in Scotland. According to some rankings, it is ranked as the second best university in the United Kingdom, behind Cambridge. The University is an integral part of the burgh and during term time students make up approximately one third of the town’s population.[citation needed]

The town is named after Saint Andrew the Apostle. There has been an important church in St Andrews since at least AD 747, when it was mentioned in the Annals of Tigernach, and a bishopric since at least the 11th century.[citation needed] The settlement grew to the west of St Andrews cathedral with the southern side of the Scores to the north and the Kinness burn to the south. The burgh soon became the ecclesiastical capital of Scotland, a position which was held until the Scottish Reformation. The famous cathedral, the largest in Scotland, now lies in ruins. St Andrews Cathedral was once the largest building in Europe.

St Andrews is also known worldwide as the “home of golf”. This is in part because of The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, founded in 1754, which until 2004 exercised legislative authority over the game worldwide (except in the United States and Mexico). It is also because the famous Old Course of St Andrews Links (acquired by the town in 1894) is the most frequent venue for The Open Championship, the oldest of golf’s four major championships. Visitors travel to St Andrews in great numbers for several courses ranked amongst the finest in the world, as well as for the sandy beaches.

The Martyrs Memorial, erected to the honour of Patrick Hamilton, George Wishart, and other martyrs of the Reformation epoch, stands at the west end of the Scores on a cliff overlooking the sea. The civil parish has a population of 18,421 (in 2011).

The earliest recorded name of the area is Cennrígmonaid. This is Old Gaelic and composed of the elements cenn (head, peninsula), ríg (king) and monaid (moor). This became Cell Rígmonaid (cell meaning church) and was Scoticised to Kilrymont. The modern Gaelic spelling is Cill Rìmhinn. It is likely that the Gaelic name represents an adaptation of a Pictish form *Penrimond. The name St Andrews derives from the town’s claim to be the resting place of bones of the apostle Andrew. According to legend, St Regulus (or Rule) brought the relics to Kilrymont, where a shrine was established for their safekeeping and veneration while Kilrymont was renamed in honour of the saint. This is the origin of a third name for the town Kilrule.

In Memory of the Martyrs Patrick Hamilton, Henry Forrest, George Wishart And Walter Mill, Who in Support of the Protestant Faith Suffered Death By Fire at St Andrews, Between The Years MDXXVIII AND MDLVIII. The Righteous shall be in Everlasting Remembrance.
The first inhabitants who settled on the estuary fringes of the rivers Tay and Eden during the mesolithic (middle Stone Age) came from the plains in Northern Europe between 10,000 and 5,000 BCE. This was followed by the nomadic people who settled around the modern town around 4,500 BCE as farmers clearing the area of woodland and building monuments.