A seat currently held at Westminster by Plaid Cymru this is an enlarged version of the former Merioneth constituency. The seat, which is largely within the Snowdonia National Park, is thinly populated and almost entirely rural, and has a majority of Welsh speakers.
The huge, sprawling Meirionnydd Nant Conwy constituency has one of the smallest electorates in England and Wales, less than half the average. Plaid Cymru have always felt more threatened by the boundary commission than other parties but have successfully argued in a series of boundary reviews that the constituency’s social and linguistic nature make it a special case. The constituency is in many ways the spiritual home of both Welsh Nationalism and Nonconformity.
Important towns in the rural South of the constituency are the county town of Dolgellau and the anglicised (and slightly run down) resort of Barmouth. The south of the constituency has few industries other than farming tourism and the depleted workforce employed to de-commission the nuclear power station at Trawsfynydd.