The community comprises the village and the districts of Carnetown[2] and Grovers Field to the south, Navigation Park to the east, and Glancynon (or Aber-taf) to the north.

A shrine and a grotto were built in 1925 on the bank of the River Taff with links to St Thomas' church.

It was the idea of Father Carroll Baillie, the first priest of Abercynon who came to minister to migrant Italian and Irish miners and the small local Welsh catholic population.

The miners used crowbars and ropes to haul huge blocks of stone from the riverbed, then strengthened the banks and terraces with a sloped wall.

The village was the terminus of the world's first steam railway journey when on 21 February 1804 the inventor Richard Trevithick drove a steam locomotive hauling both iron and passengers travelled from the Penydarren ironworks in Merthyr Tydfil to the basin of the Glamorganshire Canal at Abercynon.

Rhondda Cynon Taf Council secured £787,000 from the Welsh Government's Local Transport Fund towards the overall cost of £1.2m.

Abercynon Colliery was sunk by the Dowlais Ironworks in 1889 to supply a steel works in Cardiff.

Employing nearly 3000 men and part of the Powell Duffryn empire pre-World War II, it was in 1973 joined with the Lady Windsor Colliery at Ynysybwl.

Post-16 education is provided at Coleg y Cymoedd in Nantgarw with other campuses in Aberdare, Rhondda and Ystrad Mynach.

Abercynon's rugby league side are called the Valley Cougars and play in the Welsh Conference Premier.

An all-weather multi use 3G sports pitch at Y Parc Abercynon was opened by Rhondda Cynon Taf Council in 2018.

He also used rooms at the now demolished Ynysmeirig Hotel, known locally as "The Spy", one of a number of pubs in the village now no longer in existence.