Decibel Shield
UK cities › Wales › Cardiff
How loud is Cardiff?
In Cardiff, most noise-exposed residents face average day-evening-night (Lden) transport noise of 55–70 dB, mostly from road traffic, dropping to 50–65 dB at night. The figures are official Wales statistics from the Round 4 strategic noise maps (2022 mapping).
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| Daytime Lden range | 55–70 dB |
|---|---|
| Night Lnight range | 50–65 dB |
| vs. WHO guideline | ≈ 10 dB above the 53 dB Lden road-noise guideline (night guideline: 45 dB) |
| Dominant source | road traffic |
| Mapped area | Cardiff and Penarth (Wales) |
| Population | 378,300 |
| Data round | Round 4 (2022 mapping) |
The numbers here are the government's own exposure statistics for Cardiff, produced under the UK's environmental noise regulations. The figures cover the official "Cardiff and Penarth" agglomeration, the statutory noise-mapping area, which is wider than the city centre alone.
Across the 378,300 residents of the mapped area, the bulk of those exposed to transport noise sit in the 55–70 dB Lden band by day-evening-night average and 50–65 dB Lnight at night, with road traffic the dominant source. The midpoint of that daytime range is roughly 10 dB above the WHO's 53 dB Lden road-noise guideline (the night guideline is 45 dB Lnight).
These statistics come from the Round 4 strategic noise maps (2022 mapping), published by the Welsh Government. Because the devolved nations model their maps separately from England's Round 3 tables, Cardiff is shown with its own figures rather than forced into the England ranking.
Environmental noise in Cardiff, by the numbers
- Daytime (Lden) exposure band: 55–70 dB for the bulk of exposed residents
- Night (Lnight) exposure band: 50–65 dB
- Dominant noise source: road traffic
- Mapped-area population: 378,300
- Data: Round 4 (2022 mapping), Wales strategic noise mapping
These are the official published exposure statistics from the UK's strategic noise mapping — see the methodology on the UK city ranking. Lden is the annual-average day-evening-night level; only residents above the 55 dB Lden threshold are reported.
License: Cardiff's derived figures and noise map are published under CC BY 4.0 — reuse or republish with attribution to decibelshield.app. Contains public sector information from Defra, the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and DAERA, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Basemap © OpenStreetMap contributors, © CARTO. Download the full dataset (CSV · JSON) or the Cardiff map image.
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