BALA, a market-town of Wales, county of Merioneth, and hundred of Penllyn, at the northern extremity of a small lake, 17 miles N.E. of Dolgelly. It consists principally of one wide street. Its manufactures are flannels, stockings, and gloves. The lake of Bala is four miles long and about half a mile broad. It is very deep and clear, and abounds with pike, perch, trout, eels, and the greyriad, or coregonus lavaretus. The beds of limestone in the slate of this district, from their fossil contents, belong to the upper and lower series of silurian rocks.