Tenby, a thriving watering-place of Pembrokeshire, South Wales, 9½ miles E. of Pembroke and 276 W. of London, is finely seated on a rocky headland overlooking Carmarthen Bay. The Cymric Din-bach y Pysgod ('fishy little fortress'), it was one of the Flemish colonies planted by Henry I. in Pembrokeshire, and retains a long stretch of its ancient walls, strengthened by Queen Elizabeth in 1588, and a fragment of a castle, whence in 1471 the future Henry VII. escaped to Brittany. Its mild climate, fine level sands, and capital bathing have been the making of the place, which has an interesting Gothic church (1250) with a spire 152 feet high, a colossal marble statue of the Prince Consort (1865), and a fort (1868) on St Catherine's Island. It is an ancient municipal borough, and with Pembroke (q.v.) and five other towns returns one member to parliament. Pop. (1861) 2982; (1891) 4542—much increased during the season, which lasts from June to October.
See P. H. Gosse's Tenby; a Seaside Holiday (1856); Mrs Hall's History of Tenby (2d ed. 1873); and also Cross's Life of George Eliot, under date 1856.