Kintyre (Scottish Gaelic: Cinn Tìre, Scottish Gaelic pronunciation: [kʲʰiɲˈtʲʰiːɾʲə]) is a peninsula in western Scotland, in the southwest of Argyll and Bute. The peninsula stretches about 30 miles (50 kilometres), from the Mull of Kintyre in the south to East and West Loch Tarbert in the north. The region immediately north of Kintyre is known as Knapdale.

Kintyre is long and narrow, at no point more than 11 miles (18 kilometres) from west coast to east coast, and is less than two miles (three kilometres) wide where it connects to Knapdale at the north. Kintyre is the lower Firth of Clyde western coast and protects the Firth from the Atlantic Ocean. The southerly tip of Kintyre is on the North Channel that separates southwestern Scotland from Northern Ireland. The east side of the Kintyre Peninsula is bounded by Kilbrannan Sound, with a number of coastal peaks such as Torr Mor. The central spine of the peninsula is mostly hilly moorland, the highest point being Beinn an Tuirc at 454 metres (1,490 feet). The coastal areas and hinterland, however, are rich and fertile. Kintyre has long been a prized area for settlers, including the early Scots who migrated from Ulster to western Scotland and the Vikings or Norsemen who conquered and settled the area just before the start of the second millennium.

The principal town of the area is Campbeltown (about 5.5 miles or 8.9 km by road from the Mull), which has been a royal burgh since the mid-18th century. The area's economy has long relied on fishing and farming, although Campbeltown has a reputation as a producer of some of the world's finest single malt whisky. Campbeltown single malts include Springbank.

Kintyre Pursuivant, one of the officers of arms at the Court of the Lord Lyon, is named after this peninsula.

Kintyre, like Knapdale, contains several Stone Age sites; at Ballochroy is a trio of megaliths aligned with land features on the island of Jura, while a number of burial cairns still stand at Blasthill (near Southend, Argyll). Remains from the Iron Age are no less present, with the imposing Dun Skeig, a Celtic hillfort, located at the northern edge of Kintyre. The history of the presumed Pictish inhabitants of Kintyre is not recorded, but a 2nd-century BC stone fort survives at Kildonan (near Saddell), and it is not implausible that they continued to use Dun Skeig.

The tip of Kintyre is just 12 miles (19 kilometres) from Ulster, and there has long been interaction across the straits of Moyle, as evidenced by Neolithic finds in Kintyre, such as flint tools characteristic of Antrim. In the early first millennium, an Irish invasion led to Gaelic colonisation of an area centred on the Kintyre peninsula, establishing the Gaelic kingdom of Dál Riata. The latter was divided into a handful of regions, controlled by particular kin groups, of which the most powerful, the Cenél nGabráin, ruled over Kintyre, along with Knapdale, the region between Loch Awe and Loch Fyne (Craignish, Ardscotnish, Glassary, and Glenary), Arran, and Moyle (in Ulster).

The kingdom thrived for a few centuries, and formed a springboard for Christianisation of the mainland. Sanda, an island adjacent the south coast of Kintyre, is strongly associated with Ninian, the first known missionary to the Picts, and contains an early 5th century chapel said to have been built by him. In 563, Columba arrived in Kintyre, to pay his respects to the kings of Dal Riata, before continuing to Iona, where he established a base for missionary activity throughout the Pictish regions beyond.

Dál Riata was ultimately destroyed when Norse Vikings invaded, and established their own domain, spreading more extensively over the islands north and west of the mainland. Following the unification of Norway, they had become the Norwegian Kingdom of the Isles, locally controlled by Godred Crovan, and known by Norway as Suðreyjar (Old Norse, traditionally anglicised as Sodor), meaning southern isles. The former territory of Dal Riata acquired the geographic description Argyle (now Argyll): the Gaelic coast.