Newport, Wales name "Novus Burgus", meaning new borough or new town. The city can sometimes be found labelled as "Newport-on-Usk" on old maps. The original Welsh language name for the city, "Casnewydd-ar-Wysg" (pronounced ) means 'New castle-on-Usk' (this is a shortened version of "Castell Newydd ar Wysg") and this refers to the twelfth-century castle ruins near Newport city centre. The original Newport Castle was a small motte-and-bailey castle in the park opposite Newport Cathedral. It was buried in rubble excavated from the Hillfield railway tunnels that were dug under Stow Hill in the 1840s and no part of it is currently visible.
Newport city centre city with Newport Docks. The streets were laid-out in 1807 by Sir Charles Morgan's Tredegar Wharf Company to connect the expanding docks with the main roads in the centre. The area between Commercial Street and the river used to contain a mixture of railway lines and river wharves so the street pattern in this area was never fixed. On the removal of the railway lines and wharves in the 1960s the large John Frost Square (1977) and Kingsway Shopping Centre were built, close to Newport bus station. This area has been redeveloped to provide the Friars Walk shopping and leisure