A Little Town with a Long Name

The long-named town in Wales appears as a gray patch amidst a bucolic image with green farmland bordering the Menai Strait. Two bridges mark an area known for treacherous whirlpools.

April 9, 2025

On the southeastern coast of Anglesey, an island off the coast of mainland Wales, lies a little town with a big name. Following a Welsh tradition of naming towns after churches and nearby geographic features, Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch roughly translates to “St. Mary’s Church in the hollow of white hazel near a rapid whirlpool and the Church of St. Tysilio near the red cave.”

Though Wales has many towns with long names, the unusual length of this one is intentional. The settlement, now home to about 3,000 people, was once called Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, but a local resident pushed for the longer version of the name in the 1860s as part of an effort to promote tourism and give its train station the longest name in Britain. Locals usually use a short version of the name—either Llanfairpwll or Llanfair PG.

The OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8 captured this image of the town on April 9, 2025. The image below shows a wider view of the same area. The whirlpool mentioned in the name likely refers to a section of the Menai Strait between the Menai Suspension Bridge and Britannia Bridge known as the Swellies. The area is known for having exceptionally treacherous waters because of its complex bathymetry and because tides enter the strait from both ends at different times, creating strong swirling currents. Menai Suspension Bridge, often described as the first modern suspension bridge, was completed in 1826.

A wider view of the same area shows how the Strait of Menai connects to the open ocean to the north and south of Anglesey island. The right side of the image transitions to hillier terrain with less farmland.

April 9, 2025

Llanddaniel Fab, a village nearby, is the hometown of NASA luminary Tecwyn Roberts. Roberts was a shy boy who grew up without electricity but went on to become one of NASA’s first flight dynamics officers. He is credited with helping to conceptualize NASA’s Deep Space Network, helping design Mission Control at Johnson Space Center, and leading the development of key systems used to communicate with Apollo astronauts.

Llanfairpwll’s full name, with 58 characters, is still shorter than the ceremonial 168-character name for Bangkok, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. However, Llanfairpwll’s full name is said to be the longest one-word place name in Europe and among the longest in the world.

Neighboring planets also boast some lengthy place names. Among the contenders on these other worlds: Schiaparelli crater on Mars, Nantosuelta valley on Venus, and Tchaikovsky crater on Mercury. But even these are less than half the length of the Welsh town’s name. The International Astronomical Union working group responsible for naming planetary features recommends that the first consideration for potential names is that they be “simple, clear, and unambiguous.”

NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Story by Adam Voiland.