2026 Local Authority Report on the Resurgence of the Welsh Language

WALES.ORG RESEARCH · Part of the Wales.org Research Series

The Welsh Language Resurgence: 2026 Local Authority Report

Published 2nd September 2026 · Data as of the 2025/26 academic year · Next Welsh Government update expected August 2027

As the Welsh Government pushes toward its Cymraeg 2050 target of a million Welsh speakers, the traditional heartlands are not where the fastest change is happening. Pembrokeshire’s Welsh-medium intake has grown faster than any other county in Wales over the past seven years, a bigger shift than anywhere in Gwynedd or Anglesey.

We analysed Welsh Government data covering every local authority in Wales from the 2019/20 to 2025/26 academic years to see exactly where the language is growing, where it’s holding steady, and where it’s slipping.

Zoom out further and the change looks steadier still. The Wales-wide figure has climbed from 19.8% in 2011/12 to 22.1% today, a slow, consistent rise across 15 years rather than a recent surge, which makes this year’s fresh high part of a longer trend rather than a one-off.

Explore the Data: Your Local Authority

The Strongholds

Gwynedd remains the undisputed heartland of the language, with 90.7% of pupils taught Welsh as a first language in 2025/26. The Isle of Anglesey follows at 84.0%, and Ceredigion at 70.4%, comfortably ahead of every other county.

Gwynedd has actually eased back slightly since 2019, down from 91.6% to 90.7%. Anglesey dipped further during the pandemic years, falling to a low of 81.7% in 2020/21, before recovering to 84.0%, marginally higher than where it started. High as both remain, dominance in raw percentage is not the same as growth, and neither county is meaningfully climbing.

The Fastest Growers

Pembrokeshire has added 4.1 percentage points since 2019, more than any other county, rising from 19.3% to 23.4%. Neath Port Talbot (+2.3 points) and Conwy (+2.1 points) follow, both outpacing the Wales-wide average rise of just 0.6 points over the same period.

The most dramatic shift by proportion is Blaenau Gwent, which grew 46% relative to its own 2019 figure, from 2.8% to 4.1%, albeit from one of the smallest bases in the country. Small counts here mean these percentages can move more year to year than in a larger authority like Gwynedd.

The Urban Divide

South Wales tells two different stories. Cardiff continues its slow climb to 16.6%, up from 15.8% in 2019. Swansea has moved the other way, dipping from 14.6% to 13.8%, one of four counties nationally, alongside Gwynedd, Ceredigion and Merthyr Tydfil, to see a net decline since 2019.

Merthyr Tydfil saw the steepest fall of any county, down 15.7% relative to its 2019 figure, from 8.9% to 7.5%. As the Welsh Government continues its push toward Cymraeg 2050, closing gaps like this in the South Wales Valleys and the cities will likely matter more than the strongholds holding steady.

Regional Breakdown

Grouping the 22 local authorities into the four regions used across Wales.org, and weighting each by pupil numbers rather than simply averaging the percentages, gives a different picture to looking at individual counties alone. Mid Wales (Powys and Ceredigion) has the highest regional rate at 37.6%, ahead of North Wales at 35.2%, despite North Wales containing Gwynedd, the single highest-scoring county in the country. West Wales sits at 26.8%, and South Wales, home to just over half of all pupils in Wales, remains the lowest at 13.0%.

All four regions have grown since 2019, but South Wales’s low starting point means it needs the largest absolute gains to move the national average much further. With roughly 229,000 pupils compared to Mid Wales’s 24,700, a single percentage point of change in South Wales represents almost ten times as many children.

Part of the Wales.org Research Series. See all our data reports on the Wales Research Hub.

Compiled and edited by Nicholas Barrett, founder and editor of Wales.org.