About Wales
The Description of Wales
The Description of Wales offers us a detailed and fascinating picture of the day-to-day existence of ordinary Welshmen - their methods of agriculture, what they ate and wore and how best they could fight and resist the English.
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Police Governance In England & Wales
This handbook describes the statutes and cases that define the governance, control and authority of the provincial police forces in England and Wales.
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Changing Family Size in England and Wales
This important new study uses demographic, historical and geographical techniques to explore the declines in both infant mortality and in fertility in England and Wales between 1891 and 1911.
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The Demography of Victorian England and Wales
Robert Woods describes in detail the changing population history of England and Wales between 1837 and 1914, focusing on the great demographic revolution which occurred during those years.
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British library and information schools: the research of the Department of Information Studies, University of Wales Aberystwyth
This is the second in a series devoted to the research output of British library and information schools. This e-book focusses on the Department of Information Studies at the University of Wales Aberystwyth which recently celbrated its 40th anniversary.
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History
Main article: History of Wales
Humans first inhabited what is now Wales at the end of the last Ice Age. The first documented history was during the Roman occupation of Britain. At that time the area of modern Wales was divided into many tribes, of which the Silures in the south-east and the Ordovices in the central and north-west areas were the largest and most powerful. The Romans established a string of forts across what is now southern Wales, as far west as Carmarthen (Maridunum), and mined gold at Dolaucothi in Carmarthenshire. There is evidence that they progressed even farther west. They also built the legionary fortress at Caerleon (Isca), whose magnificent amphitheatre is the best preserved in Britain. The Romans were also busy in northern Wales, and an old legend claims that Magnus Maximus, one of the last emperors, married Elen or Helen, the daughter of a Welsh chieftain from Segontium, near present-day Caernarfon. It was in the 4th century during the Roman occupation that Christianity was introduced to Wales.
After the collapse of the Roman Empire in Britain during 410, Wales became divided into several kingdoms. Attempts by the Anglo-Saxon tribes to invade these kingdoms failed due to the fierce resistance of its people and its mountainous terrain. An Anglo-Saxon king, Offa of Mercia, is credited with having constructed a great earth wall, or dyke, along the border with his kingdom, to mark off a large part of Powys which he had conquered. Parts of Offa's Dyke can still be seen today.
The eastern lands lost to English settlement became known in Welsh as Lloegyr, the 'lost lands', and eventually became the modern Welsh name for England. The Anglo-Saxons, in turn, labelled the Romano-British as Walha, meaning 'foreigner' or 'stranger'. The Welsh countinued to call themselves as Brythoniaid (Britons) until as late as the 12th century, though the first use of Cymru and y Cymry were recorded as early as 633 by Aneirin. In the Armes Prydain written in about 930, the use of Cymry and Cymro was used as often as 15 times. It wasn't until the 12th century however, that Cymry overtook Brythoniaid in their writtings.
Following the Norman conquest of England in 1066, the independence of Wales was gradually eroded. In 1282, Edward I of England defeated Llywelyn the Last, Wales's last independent Prince, in battle. Edward constructed a series of great stone castles in order to keep the Welsh under control. The best known are at Beaumaris, Caernarfon, Conwy, and Harlech. Wales was legally annexed by the Laws in Wales Act 1535, in the reign of Henry VIII of England, who was actually Welsh. The Wales and Berwick Act 1746 provided that all laws that applied to England would automatically apply to Wales (and Berwick, a town located on the Anglo-Scottish border) unless the law explicitly stated otherwise.
In the twentieth century, Wales saw a revival in its national status. An independence movement was led by Plaid Cymru, seeking greater autonomy for the region from England. In 1955, the term England and Wales became common for describing the area to which English law applied, and Cardiff was proclaimed as capital. In 1962 the Welsh Language Society was formed in response to fears that the language may soon die out. Nationalism grew, particularly following the flooding of the Tryweryn valley in 1965, drowning the village of Capel Celyn to create a reservoir supplying water to Liverpool. In 1966 the Carmarthen Parliamentary seat was won by Plaid Cymru at a by-election, their first Parliamentary seat. A terror campaign was waged by Welsh nationalists for a short period by the Free Wales Army and Mudiad Amddiffyn Cymru (MAC - Welsh Defence Movement). In the years leading up to the investiture of Prince Charles as Prince of Wales in 1969, these groups were responsible for a number of bomb blasts destroying water pipes and tax and other offices. In 1969, the Wales and Berwick Act 1746 was repealed for Wales, and a legal definition of Wales, and the boundary with England was stated.
A referendum on the creation of an assembly for Wales in 1979 (see Wales referendum, 1979) led to a large majority for the "no". However, in 1997 a referendum on the issue was secured, although by a very narrow majority. The National Assembly for Wales was set up in 1999 (as a consequence of the Government of Wales Act 1998) and possesses the power to determine how the government budget for Wales is spent and administered.
Geography
Wales is located on a peninsula in central-west Great Britain. The entire area of Wales is about 20,779 km2 (8,023 square miles). It is about 274 km (170 miles) long and 97 km (60 miles) wide. Wales borders by England to the east and by sea in the other three directions: the Bristol Channel to the south, St George's Channel to the west, and the Irish Sea to the north. Together, Wales has over 965 km (600 miles) of coastline. There are several islands off the Welsh mainland, the largest being Anglesey in the northwest.
The main population and industrial areas are in South Wales, consisting of the cities of Cardiff, Swansea and Newport and surrounding areas.
Much of Wales's beautiful and diverse landscape is mountainous, particularly in the north and central regions. The mountains were shaped during the last ice age, the Devensian glaciation. The highest mountains in Wales are in Snowdonia, and include Snowdon ('Yr Wyddfa' in Welsh), which, at 1085 m (3,560 ft) is the highest peak in England and Wales. The 14 (or possibly 15) Welsh mountains over 3,000 feet high are known collectively as the Welsh 3,000s. The Brecon Beacons are in the south and are joined by the Cambrian Mountains in mid-Wales, the latter name being given to the earliest geological period of the Paleozoic era, the Cambrian.
In the mid-nineteenth century, two prominent geologists, Roderick Murchison and Adam Sedgwick used their studies of the geology of Wales to establish certain principles of stratigraphy and palaeontology. After much dispute, the next two periods of the Paleozoic era, the Ordovician and Silurian, were named after ancient Celtic tribes from this area.
The modern border between Wales and England is highly arbitrary; it was largely defined in the 16th century, based on medieval feudal boundaries. It has apparently never been confirmed by referendum or reviewed by any Boundary Commission (except to confirm Monmouthshire as part of Wales in 1968). The boundary line (which very roughly follows Offa's Dyke) separates Knighton from its railway station, virtually cuts off Church Stoke from the rest of Wales, and slices straight through the village of Llanymynech (where a pub actually straddles the line).
The Seven Wonders of Wales is a traditional list of seven geographic and cultural landmarks in Wales: Snowdon (the highest mountain), the Gresford bells (the peal of bells in the medieval church of All Saints at Gresford), the Llangollen bridge (built in 1347 over the River Dee), St Winefride's Well (a pilgrimage site at Holywell in Flintshire) the Wrexham steeple (16th century tower of St. Giles Church in Wrexham), the Overton yew trees (ancient yew trees in the churchyard of St Mary's at Overton-on-Dee) and Pistyll Rhaeadr (Wales's tallest waterfall, at 240 ft or 75 m). The wonders are part of the traditional rhyme:
Highest maximum temperature: 35.2°C (95.4°F) at Hawarden Bridge, Flintshire on 2 August 1990.
Lowest minimum temperature: -23.3°C (-10°F) at Rhayader, Radnorshire on 21 January 1940. metoffice.com (external)
See also: List of towns in Wales
Wales (Welsh: Cymru; pronounced IPA: , approximately "COME-ree") is one of the four constituent nations of the United Kingdom. Wales is located in the south-west of Great Britain and is bordered by the English counties of Cheshire, Shropshire, Herefordshire, and Gloucestershire to the east, the Bristol Channel to the south, St George's Channel to the southwest, and the Irish Sea to the west and north.
The term Principality of Wales, in Welsh, Tywysogaeth Cymru, is sometimes used, although the Prince of Wales has no role in the governance of Wales and this term is unpopular among some. Wales has not been politically independent since 1282, when King Edward I of England defeated Welsh monarch Llywelyn II in the Battle of Cilmeri, although Welsh law was not replaced in all cases by English law until the Laws in Wales Acts 1535-1542. The capital of Wales since 1955 has been Cardiff, although Caernarfon is the location where the Prince of Wales is invested, and Machynlleth was the home of a parliament called by Owain Glyndŵr during his revolt at the start of the fifteenth century. In 1999, the National Assembly for Wales was formed, which has limited domestic powers, due to be expanded in 2007.