Risca (Welsh: Rhisga) is a town in the Caerphilly County Borough and within the historic boundaries of Monmouthshire in south-east Wales.

The town lies at the south-eastern edge of the South Wales Coalfield and has been shaped by mining, together with other heavy industries, for many centuries.

[3] Risca is home to Ty-Sign, a large housing estate built in the early 1960s as a satellite village for the then new Llanwern steelworks.

As local industries expanded and transport links improved with the building of the canal and railways, the population rapidly increased.

[4] From 1540, Risca is found regularly in land transactions involving the Tredegar estates and in 1747 John Wesley recorded a visit in his diary.

In the UK Parliament, Risca is part of the constituency of Newport West and Islwyn, a Labour Party stronghold represented since the 2024 general election by Ruth Jones.

The constituency falls within the electoral region of South Wales East, whose four AMs are Conservatives Mohammad Asghar and William Graham, Plaid Cymru's Jocelyn Davies, and Liberal Democrat Veronica German.

Twmbarlwm has the remains of an Iron Age hill fort near its summit,[24] and this is believed to have been built by the Silures, the Celtic tribe that inhabited the area before and during Roman times.

A small bronze statuette of Samson, a bearded figure dressed in a loincloth, stands on a circular stone plinth on a square stepped base.

Risca and Pontymister railway station is served by trains between Ebbw Vale Town and either Cardiff Central or Newport.

An active mini-rugby & junior section with age groups from 6 to 16, provide a steady stream of players, some of them having progressed to the early stages of professional rugby with the Newport Gwent Dragons.

There are some extensive mountain bike trails on the wooded hills just to the north of the town, at Cwmcarn, which are receiving increasing popularity.