We report herein the synthesis and physicochemical characterisation of seven new compounds employing divalent metal ions and pyrimidine-4,6-dicarboxylato ligand (pmdc):·DMF} n (7) (where phen = 1,10-phenanthroline, form = formamide, DMSO = dimethyl sulfoxide, DMF = dimethylformamide). These compounds are the result of three different approaches that share a common aim: to replace/eliminate coordination solvent molecules to force unusual coordination modes of pmdc that render M II -pmdc polymers with different structural motifs. To this end, we have employed either metal ions that permit high coordination numbers or organic aprotic solvents that can also act as terminal ligands, while different thermal treatments have been applied to both the reaction mixtures as well as solid compounds. The crystal structure of compound 1 contains zig-zag polymeric chains in which mer- [Cd(H 2 2+ units are sequentially joined by means of bis-chelating pmdc ligands. Compound 2 is made up of stacked neutral layers that are built up from the fusion of two independent centrosymmetric [Cd 2 (phen) 2 (μ 3 -pmdc) 2 ] dinuclear units. Hydrothermal