Welsh Culture and History

• Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom, bordered by the Irish Sea, England, the Bristol Channel, and the Celtic Sea, with Cardiff as its capital and largest city.
• The population as of 2021 was 3.2 million, and the total area is 21,218 square kilometers, including over 2,700 kilometers of coastline.
• Wales is largely mountainous, with Snowdon being its highest peak.
• Welsh and English are both official languages in Wales.
• The currency is the Pound sterling (GBP; £).
• The anthem is "Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau" ("Land of My Fathers).

Welsh Culture & History

• A distinct Welsh culture emerged among the Celtic Britons after the Roman withdrawal in the 5th century.
• Wales was briefly united under Gruffydd ap Llywelyn in 1055.
• King Edward I of England completed the conquest of Wales by 1283 after 200 years of war.
• Owain Glyndŵr led a revolt in the early 15th century, briefly re-establishing an independent Welsh state.
• In the 16th century, Wales was annexed by England under the Laws in Wales Acts of 1535 and 1542.
• Distinctive Welsh politics developed in the 19th century, with Welsh Liberalism giving way to socialism and the Labour Party.
• Welsh national feeling grew, leading to the formation of Plaid Cymru (a nationalist party) in 1925 and the Welsh Language Society in 1962.
• A governing system of Welsh devolution was employed in Wales, with the Senedd (Welsh Parliament) formed in 1998.

Industrial Revolution & Modern Wales

• The Industrial Revolution transformed Wales from an agricultural society into an industrial one, especially with the South Wales Coalfield's exploitation.
• Two-thirds of the population live in South Wales, including Cardiff, Swansea, and Newport.
• Since the decline of traditional heavy industries, the public sector, light and service industries, and tourism have become major economic factors.
• Agriculture is largely livestock-based, making Wales a net exporter of animal produce.
• There are 538,300 Welsh speakers across the country.
• Wales has four UNESCO world heritage sites, three of which are in the north.

Etymology

• The names "Wales" and "Welsh" come from the Old English word "Wealh," referring to inhabitants of the Western Roman Empire, especially the Britons.
• The Welsh name for themselves is Cymry, and Cymru is the Welsh name for Wales, derived from the Brythonic word combrogi, meaning "fellow-countrymen."

History

• The territory of Wales was permanently settled from the end of the last ice age onwards.
• The Great Orme in North Wales became Britain's premier producer of copper during the Bronze Age.
• With the departure of the Romans, Britain fractured into various kingdoms.
• Encroachment by Anglo-Saxon settlers gradually displaced the indigenous culture and language of the Britons.
• Presteigne was settled inland amongst the Welsh by Saxons.
• In the 10th century, Hywel Dda formed the kingdom of Deheubarth and codified Welsh law that survived the later fracture of his kingdom, and that became a significant step in the creation of the nation.
• In 1057 Gruffydd ap Llywelyn subdued all opposition, becoming the only king to unite all of Wales but the kingdom did not last.
• The semi-independent Norman Welsh marches were formed dividing them from the unconquered Pura Wallia, after the Norman invasion of England in 1066.
• Llywelyn ab Iorwerth (Llywelyn the Great) forced all other Welsh princes to submit to him in 1216.
• The statute of Rhuddlan ended Welsh independence in 1284.
• The Welsh became full citizens in the Kingdom of England with the Laws in Wales Acts of Henry VIII.
• The Act of Union in 1707 created the Kingdom of Great Britain which saw the increase of mining and exploitation of metals, coal and slate.
• Religious revivals began a tradition of non-conformism.
• Rapid industrialisation gave rise to radical Welsh working movements such as the Merthyr Rising, Chartism, and the Newport Rising.
• Calls for devolution grew, and in 1998 the Government of Wales Act created a devolved Welsh assembly.

Government and Politics

• Wales is a country that remains part of the sovereign state of the United Kingdom.
• Wales is referred to as a country, not a principality.
• There are 32 Welsh Members of Parliament (MPs) in the House of Commons.
• The Wales Office is a UK government department responsible for Wales.
• The Senedd (Welsh Parliament) is a devolved, unicameral legislature.
• Wales is divided into 22 council areas for local government purposes.

Devolved Government

• The Government of Wales Act 1998 created the National Assembly for Wales, with the power to manage central government spending and administration.
• The Government of Wales Act 2006 reformed the National Assembly for Wales and allowed further powers to be granted to it.
• It created the Welsh Government, accountable to the legislature.
• Following a referendum in 2011, the National Assembly was empowered to make laws on all matters in devolved subject areas.
• In May 2020, the National Assembly was renamed "Senedd Cymru" or "the Welsh Parliament".
• Devolved areas of responsibility include agriculture, economic development, education, health, housing, local government, social services, tourism, transport, and the Welsh language.

Law

• Welsh Law (Cyfraith Hywel) was codified around 930 by Hywel Dda stressing compensation for crimes.
• Welsh Law remained in force until the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284.
• English law has been the legal system of England and Wales since 1536.
• English law is a common law system, with no major codification of the law and legal precedents are binding.
• The court system is headed by the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.
• The Senedd can draft and approve laws outside of the UK Parliamentary system.
• Wales has four regional police forces: Dyfed-Powys Police, Gwent Police, North Wales Police, and South Wales Police.
• There are five prisons in Wales and no women's prisons; female inmates are imprisoned in England.

Geography

• It is about 170 miles (270 km) north to south.
• The "size of Wales" is about 20,779 km2 (8,023 sq mi).
• Wales is bordered by England to the east and by the Irish Sea, St George's Channel, the Celtic Sea, and the Bristol Channel.
• Wales has about 1,680 miles (2,700 km) of coastline.
• Over 50 islands lie off the Welsh mainland, the largest being Anglesey.
• Mountains were shaped during the last ice age, the Devensian glaciation.
• Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa) is the highest peak, at 1,085 m (3,560 ft).
• The 14 Welsh mountains over 3,000 feet (910 meters) are known collectively as the Welsh 3000s.
• Wales has three national parks: Snowdonia, Brecon Beacons, and Pembrokeshire Coast
• It has five Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty: Anglesey, the Clwydian Range and Dee Valley, the Gower Peninsula, the Llŷn Peninsula, and the Wye Valley.
• The south and west coasts of Wales, along with the Irish and Cornish coasts, are frequently blasted by Atlantic westerlies/south-westerlies that, over the years, have sunk and wrecked many vessels.
• In 1859 over 110 ships were destroyed off the coast of Wales in a hurricane that saw more than 800 lives lost across Britain
• In 1996 the Sea Empress oil spill occurred.
• The Act of Union 1536 formed a linear border stretching from the mouth of the Dee to the mouth of the Wye.
• The borders remained vague and moveable until the Sunday Closing (Wales) Act 1881.

Geology & Climate

• The Cambrian geological period takes its name from the Cambrian Mountains.
• Wales lies within the north temperate zone, has a changeable, maritime climate and is one of the wettest countries.
• Highest maximum temperature: 37.1 °C (99 °F) at Hawarden, Flintshire on 18 July 2022.
• Lowest minimum temperature: −23.3 °C (−10 °F) at Rhayader, Radnorshire (now Powys) on 21 January 1940.
• Maximum rainfall in a day (0900 UTC – 0900 UTC): 211 millimetres (8.3 in) at Rhondda, Glamorgan, on 11 November 1929.
• Wettest spot averages 4,473 millimetres (176 in) rain a year at Crib Goch in Snowdonia, Gwynedd.

Flora and Fauna

• Wales hosts a variety of seabirds due to its long coastline.
• Wildlife includes gannets, Manx shearwater, puffins, kittiwakes, shags, razorbills, raven, ring ouzel, merlin, hen harrier, and the red kite.
• Larger mammals, including brown bears, wolves and wildcats, died out during the Norman period.
• Mammals today include shrews, voles, badgers, otters, stoats, weasels, hedgehogs and fifteen species of bat.
• Pine marten, sighted occasionally, have been reintroduced in parts of Wales since 2015.
• Feral goats can be found in Snowdonia.
• The waters of south-west Wales of Gower, Pembrokeshire and Cardigan Bay attract marine animals such as basking sharks and dolphins.
• Freshwater fish include char, eel, salmon, shad, sparling and Arctic char, while the gwyniad is unique to Wales, found only in Bala Lake.
• The north facing high grounds of Snowdonia support a relict pre-glacial flora including the iconic Snowdon lily.

Economy

• Wales has been transformed from an agricultural country to an industrial and then to a post-industrial economy.
• Since WWII, most jobs are in the service sector.
• In 2018, gross domestic product (GDP) in Wales was £75 billion; GDP per head was £23,866.
• In 2019, Wales was a net exporter of electricity.
• From the mid-19th century until the post-war era, the dominant industry was the mining and export of coal.
• Cardiff was once the largest coal-exporting port in the world.
• Poor-quality soil makes livestock farming the focus of agriculture.
• The Welsh landscape, with its national parks and Blue Flag beaches, bolsters the economy with many tourists.
• Wales has relatively few high value-added employment in sectors such as finance and research and development.
• In 2002 economic output per head stood at 90% of the EU25 average and around 80% of the UK average.
• As of June 2008, Wales was the first nation to be awarded Fairtrade status.
• The Royal Mint, which issues the coinage circulating through the whole of the UK, has been based at a single site in Llantrisant since 1980.

Transport

• The M4 motorway links Newport, Cardiff, and Swansea.
• The A55 expressway connects Holyhead and Bangor with Wrexham and Flintshire.
• The main north-south Wales link is the A470, running from Cardiff to Llandudno.
• Most of the rail network is geared toward east-west travel connecting with the Irish Sea ports.
• Cardiff Airport is the international airport of Wales.
• Regular ferry services to Ireland operate from Holyhead, Pembroke Dock, and Fishguard.

Education

• Wales has developed a distinct education system.
• The first grammar schools were established in Welsh towns such as Ruthin, Brecon, and Cowbridge.
• Griffith Jones introduced circulating schools in the 1730s, teaching half the country's population to read.
• In the early 19th century, English became the usual language of instruction in schools.
• More Welsh was gradually used at schools in Welsh-speaking areas in the mid to late 19th century.
• The University College of Wales opened in Aberystwyth in 1872.
• The Welsh Intermediate Education Act of 1889 created 95 secondary schools.
• Welsh is a compulsory subject in all of Wales's state schools for pupils aged 5–16 years old.

Healthcare

• Public healthcare in Wales is provided by NHS Wales (GIG Cymru).
• The NHS became the responsibility of the Welsh Assembly under devolution in 1999.
• Work has been concentrated in newer, larger district hospitals.
• NHS Wales directly employs over 90,000 staff, making it Wales's biggest employer.

Demography

• The population of Wales doubled from 587,000 in 1801 to 1,163,000 in 1851.
• Much of the population increase occurred in coal mining districts.
• There was large-scale migration into Wales during the Industrial Revolution from the English, Irish, and Italians.
• Net migration has generally been inward since the 1980s.
• The resident population of Wales in 2021 was 3,107,500.

Language

• Welsh is an official language in Wales.
• The proportion of Welsh speakers declined during the 20th century, reaching a low of 18.9% in 1981.
• The 2021 census recorded that the Welsh-speaking population of Wales aged three or older was 17.8% (538,300 people).
• English is spoken by almost all people in Wales.
• Polish has become the most common main language in Wales after English and Welsh.

Religion

• Forms of Christianity have dominated religious life in Wales for more than 1,400 years.
• The 2021 census recorded that 46.5% had "No religion".
• The largest religion in Wales is Christianity, with 43.6% 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.
• Non-Christian religions are small, with Islam being the largest non-Christian religion.

Ethnicity

• The local authorities with the highest proportions of "high-level" ethnic groups other than "White" were mainly urban areas, including Cardiff, Newport, and Swansea.
• 90.6 per cent of the population identified as "White: Welsh, English, Scottish, Northern Irish or British" in 2021.
• 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% identified as "Welsh only" and 8.1% identified as "Welsh and British," giving a combined proportion of 63.3% for people identifying as Welsh.

Culture: Mythology

• Celtic mythology of the pre-Christian Britons was passed down orally by the cynfeirdd (the early poets).
• Surviving works are in medieval Welsh manuscripts like the Black Book of Carmarthen, the Book of Aneirin, the Book of Taliesin, the White Book of Rhydderch, and the Red Book of Hergest.
• Prose stories from the White and Red Books are known as the Mabinogion.

Literature

• Wales has one of the oldest unbroken literary traditions in Europe going back to the sixth century. Surviving verse is much-changed and medieval.
• From the 16th century the proliferation of the 'free-metre' verse became the most important development in Welsh poetry.
• In 1588 William Morgan translated the Bible into Welsh.
• 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.
• Dylan 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, Visual Arts, National Symbols;

• Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales operates at seven sites with free entry to all sites.
• Celtic art has been found in Wales.
• Celtic Christianity of Wales was part of the Insular art of the British Isles.
• The red dragon is the principal symbol of national identity and pride, personifying the fearlessness of the Welsh nation.
• On 1 March, Welsh people celebrate Saint David's Day, commemorating the death of the country's patron saint in 589.
• The Prince of Wales's feathers is also used in Wales.
• "Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau" (English: Land of My Fathers) is the de facto, national anthem of Wales.

Sports

• More than 50 national governing bodies regulate and organise their sports in Wales.
• Wales is represented at major world sporting events.
• At the Olympic Games, Welsh athletes compete alongside those of Scotland, England, and Northern Ireland as part of a Great Britain team.
• Although football has traditionally been the more popular sport in North Wales, rugby union is seen as a symbol of Welsh identity.
• Wales has had its own football league, the Welsh Premier League, since 1992.

Media

• The Western Mail is Wales's only print national daily newspaper.
• The Books Council of Wales is tasked with promoting Welsh literature in Welsh and English.

Cuisine

• Traditional Welsh dishes include laverbread (made from seaweed), bara brith (fruit bread), cawl (a lamb stew), and Welsh cakes.
• Chicken tikka masala is the country's favorite dish.

Performing Arts

• Traditional instruments of Wales include the telyn deires (triple harp), fiddle, crwth (bowed lyre), and the pibgorn (hornpipe).