Bala is a market-town and urban district of Merionethshire, North Wales, at the north end of Bala Lake, 17 miles (27 km) north-east of Dolgellau, with a population (1901) of 1554 (2001 census: 1,980). It is little more than one wide street, Stryd Fawr.
In the 18th century, it was well-known for the manufacture of flannel, stockings, gloves and hosiery. The Tower of Bala (30 ft. / 9m high by 50 ft. / 15m diameter) is a tumulus or "moat-hill", formerly thought to mark the site of a Roman camp. The theological college of the Calvinistic Methodists and the grammar school, which was founded in 1712, are the chief features, together with the statue of the Rev. Thomas Charles (1755-1814), the distinguished theological writer, to whom was largely due the foundation of the British and Foreign Bible Society.
Bala is also a suburb of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, often combined (for example, by the United States Postal Service) with a neighboring suburb, Cynwyd (pronounced "kinwid") in the combined community of Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania. N.B. Cynwyd (pronounced "kunwid") is also a neighbouring community to the Welsh Bala.
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