III.

Population and Administration

The population of the county borough is 55,983 (2001). Approximately 18 per cent of the population is Welsh-speaking (see Celtic Languages). The main town and administrative centre of the unitary authority is Merthyr Tydfil (population, 1991, 39,600), situated in the north of the county borough. The remaining settlements are mostly industrial villages in the base of the valleys that stretch south-eastward from Merthyr Tydfil, often consisting of terraced houses built for the miners who worked the coalfield. For many years the traditional scenery of the valleys included huge heaps of coal waste, dumped on the slopes above the villages. Most of these have now been reclaimed, a programme initiated in part by the Aberfan disaster of October 1966, when an unstable coal tip collapsed on to the school beneath killing 144 people, 116 of them children.

There is a Crown Court in Merthyr Tydfil. The police authority is the South Wales Constabulary, with headquarters in Bridgend in Bridgend county borough.