County of Gwynedd, Wales Genealogy

Wales Counties of Wales



The county of Gwynedd, in the north-west of Wales, was formed during the controversial re-organisation of local government in Wales in 1974. It consisted of the whole of the historic counties of Anglesey and Caernarfonshire; the majority of Merionethshire (with the exception of the Edeirnion Rural District which became part of the newly formed county of Clwyd); and the Conwy Valley parishes of Llanrwst, Llansanffraid Glan Conwy, Eglwysbach, Llanddoged, Llanrwst and Tir Ifan from Denbighshire.

This new county was divided into five districts:


 * Aberconwy
 * Arfon
 * Anglesey
 * Dwyfor
 * Meirionnydd

The county town was Caernarfon.

The county was named after the independent Kingdom of Gwynedd which covered the north-west of Wales from the end of the Roman period until the 13th Century.



Further re-organisation of local government in Wales abolished the county of Gwynedd, and its five districts, on 1 April 1996.

The county of Gwynedd was split up into three new Unitary Authorities:


 * Gwynedd (with very different boundaries to the previous county of the same name)
 * Anglesey (with the same boundaries as the historic county of the same name)
 * County Borough of Conwy (also taking in parts of the former county of Clwyd)

Caernarfon remained the county town.