County town: Carmarthen
Carmarthenshire is the largest Welsh county, incorporating parts of the ancient kingdoms of Deheubarth and Ystrad Tywi. It became a shire county under the Laws in Wales Acts of 1536.
Carmarthenshire is Wales's largest county by area, its landscape encompassing the Tywi valley — the longest river lying entirely in Wales — the Carmarthen Bay coastline, and the uplands of the Preseli and Black Mountains margins. Carmarthen, one of the oldest continuously occupied towns in Wales, was the site of a Roman fort and amphitheatre. The county is associated with the legend of Merlin — Myrddin — whose magical city of Caerfyrddin is identified with Carmarthen. Dylan Thomas, Wales's greatest poet, was born in Swansea but lived and is buried at Laugharne in Carmarthenshire, where he wrote Under Milk Wood.
The historic counties of Wales were created under the Laws in Wales Acts of 1535–42, overlying a much older landscape of Welsh kingdoms — Gwynedd, Powys, Deheubarth, and Morgannwg — that had shaped settlement, culture, and lordship for centuries. The county of Carmarthenshire incorporates territory from these earlier political divisions, and its boundaries preserve traces of the medieval Welsh landscape.
Wales's 13 historic counties were created under the Laws in Wales Acts of 1535–42, which brought Wales into the English legal and administrative system. Based partly on medieval Welsh kingdoms and Norman lordships, they were the framework of Welsh administration until 1974.
An Aubrey report for a specific location in Carmarthenshire draws on historical maps, archaeological records, Domesday data and landscape history to tell the full story of any site in the county.
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