Snowdonia
Snowdonia, or Eryri, is a mountainous region and national park in North Wales. It contains all 15 mountains in Wales over 3000 feet high, including the country's highest, Snowdon, which is tall. These peaks are all part of the Snowdon, Glyderau, and Carneddau ranges in the north of the region. The lower Moelwynion and Moel Hebog ranges lie immediately to the south.
The national park has an area of , and covers most of central and southern Gwynedd and the western part of Conwy County Borough. This is much larger than the area traditionally considered Snowdonia, and in addition to the five ranges above includes the Rhinogydd, Cadair Idris, and Aran ranges and the Dyfi Hills. It also includes most of the coast between Porthmadog and Aberdyfi. The park was the first of the three national parks of Wales to be designated, in October 1951, and the third in the UK after the Peak District and Lake District, which were established in April and May 1951 respectively. The park received 3.89 million visitors in 2015.
Toponymy
The name "Snowdon" means "snow hill" and is derived from the Old English elements "snāw" and "dūn", the latter meaning "hill". It is first recorded as Snawdune in 1095. "Snowdonia" is derived from the name of the mountain and is first recorded in 1284, but there is no evidence it survived in common use until it was re-popularised in the nineteenth century. The Welsh name of the mountain is Yr Wyddfa, and is unrelated to the name of the area.Eryri is first recorded in 1191. It likely derived from eryr, meaning "ridge", with the collective form eryri referring to the area around Snowdon. A popular interpretation is that the name means "place of the eagle", as eryr also means "eagle" and the two meanings are probably cognate.
Extent
Before the boundaries of the national park were designated, "Snowdonia" was generally used to refer to a smaller upland area of northern Gwynedd centred on the Snowdon massif. The national park covers an area more than twice that size, extending south into the Meirionnydd area.This difference is apparent in books published before 1951. In George Borrow's 1862 Wild Wales he states that "Snowdon or Eryri is no single hill, but a mountainous region, the loftiest part of which called Y Wyddfa", making a distinction between the summit of the mountain and the surrounding massif. The Mountains of Snowdonia by H. Carr & G. Lister defines "Eryri" as "composed of the two cantrefs of Arfon and Arllechwedd, and the two commotes of Nant Conwy and Eifionydd", which corresponds to Caernarfonshire with the exception of southwest Llŷn and the Creuddyn Peninsula.
In Geography ''Volume 26, a journal of the Geographical Association published in 1941, Thomas Cotterill Warrington, writes a section titled "Nomenclature in the Mountains of Carnarvonshire" defining both "Snowdonia" and "Eryri". "Snowdonia" was described by Warrington as a "tourist's or mountaineer's term" which encompassed the district containing Pen-y-Gwryd at its centre. Its boundaries were described as stretching from the Conwy valley to Fairy Glen gorge, then from the Lledr Valley towards Dolwyddelan, and then across the hills to the valley of Ffestiniog and to Porthmadog, before following the road to Caernarfon passing Dolbenmaen and Llanllyfni. "Eryri" was defined by Warrington to encompass all of what he described as "Snowdonia" plus adding the highlands between Bwlch Mawr and Yr Eifl.
In the 1946 book National Parks for Britain, by Henry Chessell, he stated that the term Snowdonia was a Latin term dating to Edward I of England and applied to the "mountain district of Carnarvonshire". Which encompasses the masses of Snowdon, the Carneddau, Glyderau, Moel Hebog, as well as the mountains extending from Moel Siabod forming the Moelwynion which was in neighbouring Merionethshire. The Nant Ffrancon Pass, Llanberis Pass, the glen between Siabod, the Glyderau and Capel Curig, and the Gwynant valley to Beddgelert, separates those mountain groups. Snowdonia was also suggested to extend further south into Merionethshire, with this part bounded by the north by Afon Glaslyn, the glen between Dolgellau and Trawsfynydd to the east, Cadair Idris to the south and the coast to the west.
In Snowdonia: The National Park of North Wales'', F. J. North states that "When the Committee delineated provisional boundaries, they included areas some distance beyond Snowdonia proper".
National park
Eryri National Park, originally named Snowdonia National Park, was established in October 1951 under the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949. The 1947 Hobhouse Report, the precursor to the Act, recommended the creation of a "North Wales National Park" with boundaries similar to those ultimately adopted, but including the area around Lake Vyrnwy and excluding the entire coastal strip from Harlech to Barmouth. Eryri was the third national park to be established the United Kingdom, following the Peak District and Lake District in April and May 1951.The park has an area, covering much of central and southern Gwynedd and the western part of Conwy County Borough, and has of coastline. The Hobhouse Report recommended against including the town of Blaenau Ffestiniog in the national park owing to the "disfigurement" caused by its slate quarries, and it forms an enclave near the centre of the area. The coastal towns of Tywyn and Barmouth are also excluded.
The park is governed by a national park authority, which was established in 1995 and has 18 members: 9 appointed by Gwynedd Council, 3 by Conwy County Borough Council, and 6 by the Welsh Government to represent the national interest. The authority's main offices are at Penrhyndeudraeth. Unlike national parks in other countries, national parks in the United Kingdom consist of both public and private land under a central planning authority. More than 26,000 people live within the park, of whom 58.6% could speak Welsh in 2011. While most of the land is either open or mountainous, there is a significant amount of agricultural activity within the park.
The national park authority used the name "Snowdonia" in English-language contexts until, in November 2022, it announced that it would begin a transition to using only "Eryri" in order to prioritise the Welsh language name for the area; it also began using Yr Wyddfa in preference to "Snowdon" to refer to the mountain. Following a two-year transition period, the authority announced in November 2024 that the changes would be kept due to its success in gaining support and its adoption by many businesses and by the media. The authority also announced that the national park logo would be changed to remove "Snowdonia".
Geology
The geology of Snowdonia is key to the area's character. Glaciation during a succession of ice ages has carved a distinctive rocky landscape from a heavily faulted and folded succession of sedimentary and igneous rocks. The last ice age ended only just over 11,500 years ago, leaving features attractive to visitors, which have also played a part in the development of geological science and continue to provide a focus for educational visits. Visiting Cwm Idwal in 1841, Charles Darwin realised that the landscape was the product of glaciation. The bedrock dates largely from the Cambrian and Ordovician periods with intrusions of Ordovician and Silurian age associated with the Caledonian Orogeny. There are smaller areas of Silurian age sedimentary rocks in the south and northeast and of Cenozoic era strata on the Cardigan Bay coast, though the latter are concealed by more recent deposits. Low grade metamorphism of Cambrian and Ordovician mudstones has resulted in the slates, the extraction of which once formed the mainstay of the area's economy.Geography
Mountains
The principal ranges of the traditional Snowdonia are the Snowdon massif itself, the Glyderau, the Carneddau, the Moelwynion and the Moel Hebog range. All of Wales' 3000ft mountains are to be found within the first three of these massifs and are most popular with visitors. To their south within the wider national park are the Rhinogydd and the Cadair Idris and Aran Fawddwy ranges. Besides these well-defined areas are a number of mountains which are less readily grouped, though various guidebook writers have assigned them into groups such as the "Arenigs", the "Tarrens" and the "Dyfi hills".Snowdon's summit at is the highest in Wales and the highest in Britain south of the Scottish Highlands. At, Aran Fawddwy is the highest in Wales outside of northern Snowdonia; Cadair Idris, at, is next in line.File:North snowdonia panorama.jpg|thumb|600px|Panorama of some of the Snowdon Massif including Snowdon taken from Mynydd Mawr. The Glyderau are visible in the distance.|center
Rivers and lakes
Rivers draining the area directly into Cardigan Bay are typically short and steep. From north to south they include:- the Afon Glaslyn and Afon Dwyryd, which share a common estuary,
- the Afon Mawddach and its tributaries the Wnion and the Afon Eden,
- the smaller Afon Dysynni
- and on the park's southern margin the River Dyfi.
A fuller list of the rivers and tributaries within the area is found at List of rivers of Wales.There are few natural bodies of water of any size in Wales; Snowdonia is home to most. Besides Llyn Tegid, a few lakes occupy glacial troughs, including Llyn Padarn and Llyn Peris at Llanberis and Tal-y-llyn Lake south of Cadair Idris. Llyn Dinas, Llyn Gwynant, and Llyn Cwellyn to the south and west of Snowdon feature in this category, as do Llyn Cowlyd and Llyn Ogwen on the margins of the Carneddau. There are numerous small lakes occupying glacial cirques, owing to the intensity of past glacial action in Snowdonia. Known generically as tarns, examples are Llyn Llydaw, Glaslyn and Llyn Du'r Arddu on Snowdon, Llyn Idwal within the Glyderau and Llyn Cau on Cadair Idris.
There are two large wholly man-made bodies of water in the area, Llyn Celyn and Llyn Trawsfynydd, whilst a number of the natural lakes have had their levels artificially raised. Marchlyn Mawr reservoir and italic=no Power Station's Llyn Stwlan are two cases where natural tarns have been dammed as part of pumped storage hydro-electric schemes.
A fuller list of the lakes within the area is found at List of lakes of Wales. In 2023, the park standardised its Welsh language lake names, to be also used in English.