the longest town name in the UK

Llanfairpwllgwyngyll is the short version, and even that is already impossible for ordinary immortals outside of the phlegm-spitting-land of Wales to pronounce. Double L's are pronounced as a mixture of the Hebrew/Arabic ch with an 'l' sound mixed at the end, which my Welsh teacher instructed me, comes from the right-back of the mouth. W is an 'oo' sound except with a 'y' attached to it when it becomes like in simple American English, as in wind... but why am I even spending time on this name, this isn't the full town name!!! Try your hands (mouths) at this,

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.

yeah. maybe these pictures will help a bit,



the town received its name when the train was built from somewhere in England to Holyhead at the edge of Wales and quite close to Ireland (a port from which lots of boats leave towards the green land of ire) and this village was chosen as a station. a group of astute businessmen decided to give the town, a very boring little place with not much there, a name that would attract tourists. and what better than a name that has 58 letters in the english alphabet (51 in the welsh one...)? and well, even some welsh folk can't really pronounce it.

but this very nice lady from the tourist info was able to (and no she is not reading it from a piece of paper, but straight from memory!!!).



the town itself? a big shopping center which amazingly attracts loads of tourists simply due to its name! (hmm, yeah, we went there as well due to this fact).



the longest name in the world for a place? Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu, a hill in New Zealand... if you really want to count - 85 letters!!!