Welsh Word of the Day: Dinas (city)

Do you prefer the quiet of the cefn gwlad (countryside) or the hustle and bustle of trefol (urban) life? Cymru (Wales) is of course very gwledig (rural), so if you’re a lover of the country, maybe you fall into the former camp. But that doesn’t mean we can escape learning about the word dinas (city).

Dinas is a feminine noun and the plural is dinasoedd (cities).

And because it’s feminine, it takes a soft mutation after y (the), becoming y ddinas (the city). You can also use this as a translation of the phrase The City, often used to refer to the central financial districts in Llundain (London).

It’s also subject to the nasal mutation – for example, you would say say fy ninas (my city).

There are two ways to pronounce dinas. I’ve given the most standard pronunciation above, but those from South Wales do very often say it like this:

This word is an augmentation of the archaic din (fortress). These days, you only see din in place names, like Dinbych (Denbigh) and Caerfyrddin (Carmarthen), or in descendant words like murddin (fortification) and dinas itself.

There are plenty of words derived from dinas, too, like dinesydd (citizen) and of course prifddinas (capital city). You may see dinaswr given as a translation for citizen, too, but this is more commonly used to mean someone who specifically lives in a city as opposed to a tref (town) or pentref (village).

Some of these words have meanings that extend further than you might initially expect. This is because the Latin word civicus (meaning “pertaining to a city”) – along with its associations with qualities and responsibilities tied to civic life – has been effectively calqued into Welsh.

So, we end up with words like dinasaidd (civic) and dinesig (civil), that don’t seem much to do with dinasoedd, but are connected to them semantically through Latin – despite the fact that dinas doesn’t even come from a Latin root!

A dinas can be loosely defined as a large sefydliad (settlement) of people. They are generally known for having more, and more varied, adeiladau (buildings), gwasanaethau (services), and digwyddiadau (events).

Historically many dinasoedd were self-governing dinas-wladwriaethau (city-states). Some still function in this way today, like Singapôr (Singapore) or Dinas y Fatican (the Vatican City).

In the UK, a dinas traditionally referred to towns which featured an eglwys gadeiriol (cathedral). These days, the status of dinas is granted by the brenin (king) or brenhines (queen) as and when they please, regardless of what eglwysi (churches) are or aren’t there.

But it is generally used for larger trefi (towns) or those that carry some special cultural or economic importance. Most cities have a cyngor dinesig (city council), which gives them some influence over their local politics.

Cymru is home to seven of the UK’s 76 cities. This was news to me – I thought we only had three!

Firstly, there are the three decent-sized cities of De Gymru (South Wales). Caerdydd (Cardiff) is our prifddinas and largest dinas, with a population of around 350,000. What a lot of people don’t know is that it has a really thriving cultural scene and is one of the UK’s main centres for producing teledu a ffilm (TV and film). It’s even where Dr Who is made!

The other two are Abertawe (Swansea) and Casnewydd (Newport), which are both coastal cities, like Caerdydd.

Well-known for its gorgeous traethau (beaches), Abertawe has its own unique identity as the birthplace of Dylan Thomas, and is considered Wales’ ail-ddinas (second city).

I have to admit that Casnewydd was one of the dinasoedd I wasn’t counting, as it’s often considered semi-combined with Caerdydd in the Cardiff-Newport metropolitan area, which features a lot of Cymru’s other major Southern towns, like Pen-y-Bont (Bridgend) and Merthyr Tydfil.

The third dinas I was aware of is Wrecsam (Wrexham), the largest dinas in North Wales, which sits on the border with Lloegr and was only awarded official dinas status in 2022. It had actually made a bid to become a dinas three times before it was finally successful!

Lastly, there are three much smaller dinasoedd, which are considered such for historical and religious reasons.

Bangor has a population of only 15,000 but is incredibly culturally important. For one thing, it’s actually the oldest dinas in Cymru if we’re going by the traditional definition. The unofficial capital of Gwynedd, the Welsh county with the greatest number of speakers of Cymraeg (Welsh), it’s also home to Bangor University, the only prifysgol (university) in Cymru rated gold for teaching excellence.

Llanelwy (St Asaph), near the Northern coast, is even smaller. In fact, it’s the second smallest dinas in the United Kingdom. Second to what, you ask…

Cymru’s last and tiniest dinas is the charming Tyddewi (St Davids), located on the coast of gorgeous Sir Benfro (Pembrokeshire). It’s named after Dewi Sant (St David), the country’s patron saint who was said to be born there. Its population was last recorded at 1,751 – but its hanes (history), pensaernïaeth (architecture) and diwylliant (culture) prove that size isn’t everything.