Facts about Wales

General Facts

• Wales is a country within the United Kingdom, bordered by the Irish Sea to the north and west, England to the east, the Bristol Channel to the south, and the Celtic Sea to the southwest.
• The capital and largest city is Cardiff.
• The official languages are Welsh (Cymraeg) and English.
• As of 2021, the population was approximately 3.2 million.
• Total area covers 21,218 square kilometers (8,192 sq mi) and the coastline extends over 2,700 kilometers (1,680 mi).
• The landscape is largely mountainous, with the highest peak being Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa).
• The climate is temperate and maritime, characterized by changeable weather.

Etymology

• The English names "Wales" and "Welsh" originate from the Old English word "Wealh," derived from Proto-Germanic "*Walhaz," which referred to Gauls and later indiscriminately to inhabitants of the Western Roman Empire.
• Anglo-Saxons used "Wealh" to refer to Britons, and the plural form evolved into "Wales."
• The Welsh name for themselves is "Cymry," and "Cymru" is the Welsh name for Wales, both derived from the Brythonic word "combrogi," meaning "fellow-countrymen."
• Latinized forms such as Cambrian, Cambric, and Cambria are still used in names like the Cambrian Mountains.

History

• The territory of Wales has been inhabited since the end of the last ice age.
• During the Bronze Age, the Great Orme in North Wales became a major copper producer.
• The region developed a distinct Celtic culture before the Roman invasion.
• After the departure of the Romans, Britain divided into various kingdoms, with Magnus Maximus proclaiming himself Roman emperor in Britannia and Gaul in 383.
• Germanic Anglo-Saxon settlers gradually displaced the Britons, leading to the isolation of one group in the western peninsula, named Wallia by the English.
• Medieval Wales remained divided into separate kingdoms and was not homogeneously Welsh, with Viking/Norse settlements along the coast and Saxon settlements inland.
• In the 10th century, Hywel ap Cadell (Hywel Dda) formed the kingdom of Deheubarth and gained control over most of Wales, codifying Welsh law.
• By 1057, Gruffydd ap Llywelyn united all of Wales, though his kingdom was short-lived.
• The Normans invaded Wales after England, creating the Norman Welsh Marches.
• Llywelyn ab Iorwerth (Llywelyn the Great) forced other Welsh princes to submit to him by 1216, but Wales divided again after his death.
• Llywelyn ap Gruffudd secured supremacy, recognized as Prince of Wales by Henry III in 1267.
• English victory in 1283 led to the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284, ending Welsh independence and dividing Wales.
• The Welsh rebellion under Owain Glyndŵr from 1400-1415 sought to restore independence.
• The Laws in Wales Acts of Henry VIII annexed Wales into the Kingdom of England, granting Welsh citizens full rights and parliamentary representation.
• In 1707, the Act of Union created the Kingdom of Great Britain.
• The Industrial Revolution transformed Wales into an industrial society with increased mining.
• Religious revivals led to non-conformism, influencing politics, while industrialization spurred radical working-class movements.
• From the mid-19th century, Wales experienced a political and cultural revival, but the "Treachery of the Blue Books" report led to a requirement for bilingual education.
• Calls for devolution grew, and in 1998, the Government of Wales Act established a devolved Welsh assembly, now the Senedd or Welsh Parliament.

Government and Politics

• Wales is a country that is part of the sovereign state of the United Kingdom.
• Wales is constitutionally defined as a country rather than a principality.
• There are 32 Welsh Members of Parliament (MPs) in the UK House of Commons.
• The Wales Office is a UK government department responsible for Wales, headed by the Secretary of State for Wales.
• Wales has a devolved, unicameral legislature known as the Senedd (Welsh Parliament).
• For local government, Wales is divided into 22 council areas responsible for local services since 1996.

Devolved Government

• The Government of Wales Act 1998 created the National Assembly for Wales, with powers over central government budget spending.
• The Government of Wales Act 2006 reformed the National Assembly, creating the Welsh Government, accountable to the legislature.
• After a 2011 referendum, the National Assembly gained law-making powers on devolved matters without UK Parliament approval.
• In May 2020, the National Assembly was renamed "Senedd Cymru" or "the Welsh Parliament".
• Devolved areas include agriculture, economic development, education, health, housing, local government, social services, tourism, transport, and the Welsh language.

Law

• Welsh Law, codified by Hywel Dda around 930, emphasized compensation for crimes rather than punishment.
• Welsh Law remained in force until the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284, which replaced it with English law for criminal cases.
• The Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542 extended English law to the whole of Wales.
• The Wales and Berwick Act 1746 provided that laws applying to England would automatically apply to Wales unless stated otherwise (repealed in 1967).
• English law is a common law system with binding legal precedents.
• The court system is headed by the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.
• Since 2007, Wales has been a legal unit in its own right, part of the single jurisdiction of England and Wales.
• The Senedd can draft and approve laws for Wales.
• Following a March 2011 referendum, the Senedd can pass primary legislation on specified subjects, such as health and education.
• Wales has four regional police forces and five prisons (no women's prisons).

Geography and Natural History

• Wales is a mountainous country in Great Britain, about 170 miles (270 km) north to south.
• Total area is about 20,779 km2 (8,023 sq mi).
• It is bordered by England to the east, and sea in all other directions, with approximately 1,680 miles (2,700 km) of coastline.
• It is home to over 50 islands off the mainland, with Anglesey as the largest.
• The landscape features mountains, particularly in the north and central regions, shaped during the last ice age.
• Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa) is the highest peak at 1,085 m (3,560 ft).
• The Welsh 3000s are 14 or 15 mountains over 3,000 feet (910 meters) high in the north-west.
• Wales has three national parks: Snowdonia, Brecon Beacons, and Pembrokeshire Coast.
• There are five Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, including the Gower Peninsula (the first designated in the UK in 1956).
• As of 2019 Wales has 40 Blue Flag beaches, three Blue Flag marinas, and one Blue Flag boat operator.
• The south and west coasts have seen numerous shipwrecks due to Atlantic westerlies.

Geology

• The Cambrian geological period is named after the Cambrian Mountains.
• In the mid-19th century, Roderick Murchison and Adam Sedgwick used Welsh geology to establish principles of stratigraphy and palaeontology.
• The Ordovician and Silurian periods are named after ancient Celtic tribes from this area.

Climate

• Wales is in the north temperate zone, with a changeable, maritime climate.
• It is one of the wettest countries in Europe, often cloudy, wet, and windy.
• Summers are warm and winters are mild.
• The highest recorded temperature was 37.1 °C (99 °F) at Hawarden, Flintshire on 18 July 2022.
• The lowest temperature was −23.3 °C (−10 °F) at Rhayader, Radnorshire on 21 January 1940.
• The maximum sunshine in a month was 354.3 hours at Dale Fort, Pembrokeshire in July 1955.
• The minimum sunshine in a month was 2.7 hours at Llwynon, Brecknockshire in January 1962.
• The maximum rainfall in a day was 211 millimetres (8.3 in) at Rhondda, Glamorgan, on 11 November 1929.
• The wettest area averages 4,473 millimetres (176 in) of rain a year at Crib Goch, Snowdonia.

Flora and Fauna

• Wales's wildlife is similar to Britain's with several unique aspects.
• The coastline supports various seabirds, including gannets, Manx shearwaters, and puffins.
• Upland birds include ravens and ring ouzels.
• Birds of prey include merlins, hen harriers, and red kites.
• Larger mammals like brown bears, wolves, and wildcats, died out during the Norman period.
• Current mammals include shrews, voles, badgers, otters, stoats, weasels, hedgehogs and fifteen species of bat.
• The pine marten has been reintroduced since 2015.
• Feral goats are found in Snowdonia.
• In March 2021, beavers were released in the Dyfi Valley.
• Disused coal tips are home to rare land invertebrates and other wildlife.
• Marine animals in south-west Wales include basking sharks, seals, dolphins, and jellyfish.
• Freshwater fish include char, eel, salmon, and the gwyniad (unique to Bala Lake).
• Shellfish include cockles, mussels, and periwinkles.
• Snowdonia supports pre-glacial flora, including the Snowdon lily.

Economy

• Wales has transformed from an agricultural to an industrial, and then to a post-industrial economy.
• Since the Second World War, the service sector accounts for the majority of jobs.
• Gross domestic product (GDP) in Wales was £75 billion in 2018, an increase of 3.3 per cent from 2017.
• GDP per head in Wales in 2018 was £23,866, an increase of 2.9 per cent on 2017.
• In the three months to December 2017, 72.7 per cent of working-age adults were employed.
• For the 2018–19 fiscal year, the Welsh fiscal deficit accounts for 19.4 per cent of Wales's estimated GDP.
• Wales was a net exporter of electricity in 2019.
• It produced 27.9 TWh of electricity while consuming 14.7 TWh.
• By UK law, Wales contributes to items that do not directly benefit; also pays more in military costs than similar-sized countries.
• From the mid-19th century until the post-war era, coal mining and export dominated the economy.
• Cardiff was once the largest coal-exporting port in the world.
• From the mid-1970s, the Welsh economy restructured, with new jobs in light industry and services.
• Wales attracted foreign direct investment in the late 1970s and early 1980s for "branch factory" type jobs.
• Much of Wales has poor-quality soil. Livestock farming is dominant, with about 78 per cent of the land surface used for agriculture.
• Tourism, with national parks and Blue Flag beaches, bolsters the economy of rural areas.
• Wales has relatively few high value-added employment in sectors such as finance and research and development.
• In June 2008, Wales became the first nation to be awarded Fairtrade status.
• The pound sterling is the currency used in Wales.
• Restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020-2021 affected all economic sectors.

Transport

• The M4 motorway links South Wales, Newport, Cardiff, and Swansea to West London.
• The A55 expressway connects Holyhead and Bangor with Wrexham and Flintshire, linking to northwest England.
• The A470 runs from Cardiff to Llandudno.
• Rail transport includes the Wales & Borders franchise, overseen by the Welsh Government.
• Cardiff has its own urban rail network.
• Rail network is geared toward east-west travel, connecting with Irish Sea ports.
• North-south Wales services operate through English cities and towns.
• Cardiff Airport is the international airport of Wales, linking to Europe, Africa, and North America.
• Wales has four commercial ferry ports with services to Ireland operating from Holyhead, Pembroke Dock, and Fishguard.

Education

• A distinct education system has developed in Wales.
• Formal education before the 18th century was for the elite.
• Griffith Jones introduced circulating schools in the 1730s, which are believed to have taught half the country's population to read.
• In the early 19th century, English became the usual language of instruction.
• The University College of Wales opened in Aberystwyth in 1872.
• The Welsh Intermediate Education Act of 1889 created 95 secondary schools.
• The Welsh Department for the Board of Education followed in 1907, which gave Wales its first significant educational devolution.
• A resurgence in Welsh-language schools in the latter half of the 20th century at nursery and primary level saw attitudes shift towards teaching in the medium of Welsh.
• Welsh is a compulsory subject in all of Wales's state schools for pupils aged 5–16 years old.
• Welsh-medium higher education is delivered through the individual universities and since 2011 supported by the Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol (Welsh-language National College).
• In 2021–2022, there were 1,470 maintained schools in Wales.
• In 2021–22, the country had 471,131 pupils taught by 25,210 full-time equivalent teachers.

Healthcare

• Public healthcare in Wales is provided by NHS Wales (GIG Cymru).
• It was originally part of the NHS structure for England and Wales, with powers passing to the Welsh Assembly in 1999. NHS Wales directly employs over 90,000 staff, making it Wales's biggest employer.
• In 2006, there were seventeen district hospitals in Wales.
• The survey recorded that 46 per cent of Welsh adults had a long-standing illness, such as arthritis, asthma, diabetes or heart disease.

Demography

• The population of Wales doubled from 587,000 in 1801 to 1,163,000 in 1851 and reached 2,421,000 by 1911.
• Most of the increase came in the coal mining districts, especially Glamorganshire.
• It can be attributed to the demographic transition and large-scale migration into Wales.
• Wales also received immigration from various parts of the British Commonwealth of Nations in the 20th century, and African-Caribbean and Asian communities add to the ethnocultural mix.
• The resident population of Wales in 2021 according to the census was 3,107,500.
• Wales has seven cities: Cardiff, Newport, Swansea, Wrexham, Bangor, St Asaph and St Davids.
• Wrexham, north Wales's largest settlement, became Wales's newest and seventh city in September 2022.

Language

• Welsh is an official language as legislated by the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011.
• Both Welsh and English are also official languages of the Senedd.
• The proportion of the Welsh population able to speak the Welsh language fell from just under 50 per cent in 1901 to 43.5 per cent in 1911, and continued to fall to a low of 18.9 per cent in 1981.
• The Welsh-speaking population of Wales aged three or older was 17.8 per cent (538,300 people) according to the 2021 census.
• English is spoken by almost all people in Wales and is the main language in most of the country.
• Welsh is spoken as a first language by the majority of the population in Northern and Western Wales, with English learned as a second language.
• Polish has become the most common main language in Wales after English and Welsh, at 0.7 per cent of the population.

Religion

• Christianity has dominated religious life in Wales for over 1,400 years.
• The 2021 census recorded that 46.5 per cent had "No religion".
• Christianity is the largest religion in Wales, with 43.6 per cent of the population describing themselves as Christian in the 2021 census.
• The patron saint of Wales is Saint David (Dewi Sant), with Saint David's Day (Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Sant) celebrated annually on 1 March.
• The Church in Wales has the largest attendance of the denominations.
• Non-Christian religions are small in Wales, making up approximately 2.7 per cent of the population.
• Islam is the largest non-Christian religion, with 24,000 (0.8 per cent) reported Muslims in the 2011 census.

Ethnicity

• According to the 2021 census, the population of Wales is largely "White" (93.8 per cent).
• 90.6 percent of the population identified as "White: Welsh, English, Scottish, Northern Irish or British" in 2021.
• The second-highest ethnicity in 2021 was "Asian, Asian Welsh or Asian British" at 2.9 per cent of the population.
• Other ethnic groups include "Mixed or multiple ethnic groups", "Black, Black Welsh, Black British, Caribbean or African", and "Other ethnic group".
• In 2021, the first outdoor statue of a named, non-fictional woman was raised for Wales's first black headteacher, Betty Campbell.
• In 2023, Patti Flynn became the first black Welsh woman to be awarded a purple plaque.
• In 2024, Vaughan Gething was elected First Minister of Wales becoming the first black head of government in Europe.

National Identity

• The 2021 census showed that 55.2 per cent identified as "Welsh only" and 8.1 per cent identified as "Welsh and British", giving the combined proportion of 63.3 per cent for people identifying as Welsh.
• The Welsh Annual Population Survey showed that the proportion of people who identified as Welsh versus another identity was 62.3 per cent in 2022, compared to 69.2 per cent in 2001.

Culture

• Wales has its own language, customs, holidays and music.
• There are four UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Wales: The Castles and Town Walls of King Edward I in Gwynedd; Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Canal; the Blaenavon Industrial Landscape; and The Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales.

Mythology

• Native Celtic mythology was passed down orally by the cynfeirdd (early poets).
• Some of their work survives in medieval Welsh manuscripts.
• Poems and mnemonic list-texts also contain mythological material.
• These texts include the earliest forms of the Arthurian legend and the traditional history of post-Roman Britain.

Literature

• Wales has one of the oldest unbroken literary traditions in Europe.
• The earliest body of Welsh verse, by poets Taliesin and Aneirin, survive not in their original form, but in much-changed, medieval versions.
• Renaissance scholars such as William Salesbury and John Davies brought humanist ideals from English universities.
• Developments in 19th-century Welsh literature include Lady Charlotte Guest's translation into English of the Mabinogion.
• 1885 saw the publication of Rhys Lewis by Daniel Owen, credited as the first novel written in the Welsh language.
• The 20th century saw a move from the verbose Victorian Welsh style.
• Thomas was one of the most notable and popular Welsh writers of the 20th century and one of the most innovative poets of his time.

Museums and Libraries

• Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales was founded by royal charter in 1907 as the National Museum of Wales.
• The National Library of Wales, based in Aberystwyth, houses collections of printed works, art collections, and Ordnance Survey maps.

Visual Arts

• Works of Celtic art have been found in Wales.
• In the Early Medieval period, the Celtic Christianity of Wales was part of the Insular art of the British Isles.
• Richard Wilson (1714–1782) is arguably the first major British landscapist.
• The Cardiff School of Art opened in 1865.
• Various artists have moved to Wales, including Eric Gill, the London-Welshman David Jones, and the sculptor Jonah Jones.
• South Wales had several notable potteries.

National Symbols and Identity

• Wales is a modern Celtic nation, with Welsh artists regularly appearing at Celtic festivals.
• The red dragon (Y Ddraig Goch) is the principal symbol of national identity.
• It dates back to the reign of Cadwaladr, and appears on the national flag of Wales, officially adopted in 1959.
• The flag of Owain Glyndŵr is associated with Welsh nationhood
• On 1 March, Welsh people celebrate Saint David's Day, commemorating the death of the country's patron saint in 589.
• Customs include the wearing of a leek or a daffodil, which are two national emblems of Wales.
• "Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau", is the de facto national anthem of Wales.

Sport

• More than 50 national governing bodies regulate and organise their sports in Wales.
• Wales is represented at major world sporting events such as the FIFA World Cup and the Commonwealth Games.
• Wales has hosted several international sporting events, including the 1958 Commonwealth Games.
• Rugby Union is a symbol of Welsh identity.
• Wales has had its own football league, the Welsh Premier League, since 1992.
• Wales and England field a single representative team, administered by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), called the England cricket team.

Media

• Wales became the UK's first digital television nation in 2010.
• BBC Cymru Wales is the national broadcaster, producing both television and radio programmes in Welsh and English.
• ITV has a Welsh-orientated service branded ITV Cymru Wales.
• S4C began broadcasting in 1982 in Welsh at peak hours, but shared English-language content with Channel 4 at other times, and now broadcasts exclusively in Welsh.

Cuisine

• Traditional Welsh dishes include laverbread, bara brith, cawl, and Welsh cakes.

Performing Arts

• Music is central to Welsh culture, especially male voice choirs and harpists.
• The National Eisteddfod is the country's main performance festival.
• Traditional instruments of Wales include the telyn deires (triple harp), fiddle, crwth (bowed lyre) and the pibgorn (hornpipe).
• The Welsh National Opera is based at the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff Bay.
• Traditional dances include Welsh folk dancing and clog dancing.
• The National Dance Company Wales, was formed in 1983.