It is an electoral ward and a community in the unitary authority of Neath Port Talbot, Wales, comprising a resident population of just over 3,000 people, approximately 60% of whom speak Welsh.

Steel had now come to challenge iron on a larger scale, new methods of production demanded the energy, technical skill and financial capital which the ageing J. P. Budd at Ystalyfera could not supply.

[citation needed] The expansion in iron production inevitably created a heavy demand for local coal.

The middle decades of the 19th century saw the expansion of existing mines and the sinking of new ones in the parish and the neighbouring districts.

[citation needed] With the closure of the iron works and later the coalmines, Ystalyfera suffered very heavily on the economic front.

[4][5] In August 1915 an organ recital was given by Professor Firmin Swinnen, organist of Antwerp Cathedral in Belgium.

The Wern (English: Alder) Primary School, which was established at the end of the 19th century and Ysgol Gyfun Ystalyfera, the latter having consistently good examination results.

An area of woodland lies to the west and the rest of the ward consists of open moorland with a few farms.