1 Introduction Metal nanowires and nm-gaps between metal layers [1][2][3][4][5][6] are interesting for the design of optical resonators and field enhancement effects, and may find applications in such areas as optical microscopy, spectroscopy and sensing. These resonances, which have recently received a great deal of attention, are related to a type of surface electromagnetic waves known as surface plasmon polaritons (PPs), which are bound to and propagating along metal-dielectric interfaces [7,8]. In this paper we will analyze scattering and field enhancement properties of resonators based on a two-dimensional geometry based on nm-thin submicron-wide metal strips, and by utilizing knowledge of the resonant fields and the electromagnetics boundary conditions we will suggest small modifications to the resonators that result in large local field enhancements relative to the incident electromagnetic wave.A nm-thin metal-strip resonator can be thought of as a section of a nm-thin metal film (two coupled metaldielectric interfaces) which supports two types of PPs, namely a fast or long-range PP which is weakly bound to the film, and a slow or short-range PP being strongly bound. While the fast PP is interesting for integrated optics