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Snowdonia (Welsh “Eryri”) is a region of North Wales, and a national park of 838 square miles (2,170 km ²) in area. It was the first to be designated of the three National Parks in Wales in 1951.
The English name for the area derives from Snowdon, which is the highest mountain in Wales at 1085 metres (3,560 feet). In Welsh, the area is named Eryri. It is a common assumption that this is derived from eryr ("eagle"), but in fact it means quite simply Highlands.
More than 26,000 people live within the park, of whom about 62% speak Welsh. The park attracts over 6 million visitors annually, split fairly equally between day visitors and staying visitors, making it the third most visited national park in England and Wales. Whilst most of the land is either open or mountainous land, there is a significant amount of agricultural activity within the park.
Unusually, Snowdonia National Park has a hole in the middle, around the town of Blaenau Ffestiniog, a slate quarrying centre. This was deliberately excluded from the park when it was set up in order to allow the development of new light industry to replace the decimated slate industry.
The Park has 2,381 km of public footpaths, 264 km of public bridleways, and 74 km of other public rights of way. A large part of the park is also covered by Right to Roam laws.
Many of the hikers in the area concentrate on Snowdon itself -it is widely regarded as a fine mountain. However, there are also some spectacular walks in Snowdonia on the lower mountains, and they tend to be relatively unfrequented.
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