An increasing number of cities and towns across Wales, including Cardiff, Swansea, and Aberystwyth also put on parades throughout the day.

[1][2] He was reportedly a scion of the royal house of Ceredigion,[3] and founded a Celtic monastic community at Glyn Rhosyn (The Vale of Roses) on the western headland of Pembrokeshire (Welsh: Sir Benfro) at the spot where St Davids Cathedral stands today.

The 17th-century diarist Samuel Pepys noted how Welsh celebrations in London for Saint David's Day would spark wider counter-celebrations amongst their English neighbours: life-sized effigies of Welshmen were symbolically lynched,[9] and by the 18th century the custom had arisen of confectioners producing "taffies"—gingerbread figures baked in the shape of a Welshman riding a goat—on Saint David's Day.

[10] In the poem Armes Prydein (The Prophesy of Britain), composed in the early to mid-10th century, the anonymous author prophesies that the Cymry (the Welsh people) will unite and join an alliance of fellow-Celts[11] to repel the Anglo-Saxons, under the banner of Saint David: A lluman glân Dewi a ddyrchafant ("And they will raise the pure banner of Dewi").

[14] Henry's green and white banner with a red dragon became a rallying point for Welsh patriotism with the memory of Saint David on his Feast Day.

[18] To mark Saint David's Day and their return from a six-month tour of Afghanistan, soldiers from the Royal Welsh Regiment provided the Changing of the Guard ceremony at Cardiff Castle's south gate on 27 and 28 February 2010.

[22] Swansea inaugurated a "St David's Week" festival in 2009 with a range of musical, sporting, and cultural events held throughout the city to mark the national day.

[26] Disneyland Paris also organises yearly events to celebrate Saint David's Day, which includes a Welsh-themed week, fireworks, parades, and Disney characters dressed in traditional Welsh attire.

[27] Washington, DC holds a St. David's Day congressional reception at the United States Capitol in honour of the First Minister of Wales' biannual visits.

[1] Cross-party support resulted in the National Assembly for Wales voting unanimously to make Saint David's Day a public holiday in 2000.

[30] A petition in 2007 to make Saint David's Day a bank holiday was rejected by the office of the British Prime Minister Tony Blair.