The River Tawe is a river in South Wales. It flows in a principally south-westerly direction for some 48 km (28 miles) from its source below Moel Feity in the Old Red Sandstone hills of the western Brecon Beacons to the Bristol Channel at Swansea. Its only large tributary is the Clydach River. The Tawe passes through a number of towns and villages including Ystradgynlais, Ystalyfera, Pontardawe, and Clydach and meets the sea at Swansea Bay below Swansea. The Tawe valley is more commonly known as the Swansea Valley.
The lower part of the valley was intensely industrialised in the 18th and 19th centuries and was especially impacted by metal refining and working and to a much lesser extent by porcelain manufacture. Large areas of the lower valley remain contaminated by industrial spoil containing copper, lead, nickel and zinc. The only significant extant relic of those times is a major nickel refinery at Clydach which is part of the Canadian company Vale Inco. The quality of the river has now greatly improved. Large salmon and trout swim up the river to spawn.
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