St Davids - The Smallest City in the UK

What is the smallest city in the United Kingdom? If you’ve been following our discussions of cities and towns in the United Kingdom, you’d find that St Davids has some strange features. If that thought hasn’t struck your mind, those who know enough about cities and towns in the UK will have questions about St Davids. You’d likely ask, Is St Davids a town or a city?
The justification for that question is in its size and population. While we’ve discussed towns with a 30,000+ population with some like Grimsby and Luton having hundreds of thousand residents, St Davids’ population is less than 20,000. Yet it’s one of the cities in the UK. But before we proceed, let’s briefly talk about the location of this smallest city in the UK.
Where Is St Davids Located?
St Davids, also called St David's and Cathedral Close, is a city and a community with a cathedral in Pembrokeshire, Wales. This Welsh city is on the River Alun and a beautiful stretch of the Pembrokeshire coast. St Davids is the UK's smallest city both in population and in urban area by local authority boundary.
With just over 1,600 residents, St Davids is sitting at the southern end of the Irish Sea. It’s tucked away in Cardigan Bay, St George's Channel, and St Brides Bay. The community has a tiny area of 17.93 square miles or 46.4 square kilometers. This covers not just the mainland area but also some other islands off the coast.
Is St Davids a Town or a City?
Looking at the population and size of this location, one tends to conclude that St Davids is a village, or to glorify it, a town. You’d require a lot of explanation to convince someone from another part of the world that St Davids is indeed a city. But it is. It had been given city status as far back as the 12th century when it was archaically known as Meneva or Menevia.
However, this doesn’t mean it was qualified to be a city ab initio. It got the status based on the practice in England and Wales that lowered the traditional requirement for awarding city status to cathedral towns. During the 16th century, for the English Crown to recognize a city, it would have a diocesan cathedral within its limits with a royal charter or privileges of a borough. That was when Henry VIII founded dioceses. However, during borough reorganizations, this link was abolished in 1888 and St Davids lost its city status.
What we know is that city status is typically awarded to a local authority if its administrative area is considered to be the formal borders of the city. Accordingly, St Davids can be considered a city as the whole of its community area, including those settlements of St Davids, its surrounding rural area, with islands off the coast, can be mapped as being within the city.
Consequently, in 1991, St Davids town council applied for city status again. The proposal was based on the fact that the residents had long considered it a city with its geographical structure. In 1992 the Home Office consented to refer the matter of St Davids’ city status to Buckingham Palace for consideration.
Putting the history and current facts into consideration, at Queen Elizabeth II's request, in 1994, the city status of St Davids was restored. The letters patent that conferred this city status which were formally presented on 1 June 1995 by the Queen in a ceremony at St Davids Cathedral stated that the status was granted “in recognition of their important Christian heritage and their status as cities in the last century.”
Subscribe to my Channel: shorturl.at/lnC79
Website: learningcanteen.com/
✅ For business inquiries, contact me at [e-mail]
---------Support my channel------
Bitcoin: 3AUhicWAZ2WhsuajJaY2MhBQustFx18hQn
Paypal: [e-mail]
Try Tubebuddy for free: www.tubebuddy.com/learningcan...
IMPORTANT INFORMATION
This video contains images that were used under a Creative Commons License.
If you have any issue with the photos used in my channel or you find something that belongs to you before you claim it to youtube, please SEND ME A MESSAGE and I will DELETE it immediately. Thanks for understanding. Click here to see the full list of images and attributions: docs.google.com/document/d/1N...

[@russellcooper5826]

A bit mad because there are larger villages in Britain.

[@Nooziterp1]

St Asaph in North Wales must be pretty close in smallness. More like a village.

[@waverunner3911]

Wales is the biggest county in England

[@thephoenix3155]

No

[@fredrogers4717]

You do realise that England and Wales are two separate countries, right?

[@matthewhegarty2873]

Obvious troll comment is apparently not obvious

[@emotivelyy_]

The Americans reached this channel 😮