Wales Welsh Cymru, western peninsula and political division (principality) of Great Britain (1991 pop. 2,798,200), 8,016 sq mi (20,761 sq km), west of England; politically united with England since 1536. The capital is Cardiff. Wales is bounded by the Irish Sea (N), by the Bristol Channel (S), by the English counties of Cheshire , Shropshire , Herefordshire , and Gloucestershire (E), and by Cardigan Bay and St. George's Channel (W). Across the Menai Strait is the Welsh island of Anglesey .

Land and People

The Cambrian Mts. cover most of Wales, with high points at Snowdon (3,560 ft/1,085 m), Plynlimon (2,468 ft/752 m), and Cadair Idris (2,970 ft/905 m). The eastern rivers—the Dee, Severn, and Wye—drain into England. The Usk flows through Monmouthshire and Newport into the Bristol Channel. The Tywi (Towy), Taff, Teifi, Dovey (Dyfi), and Conwy (Conway) rivers lie completely in Wales. The eastern boundary, drawn in 1536, united England and Wales politically but disregarded cultural and linguistic distribution. Welsh-speaking areas were added to England's Herefordshire, Shropshire, and Gloucestershire; the language survived in Herefordshire until the 18th cent. and survives to a small extent in Shropshire today. Wales has maintained a distinctive culture despite its long union with England. Wales comprises 22 administrative divisions (unitary authorities): Flintshire, Wrexham, Denbighshire, Conwy, the Isle of Anglesey, Gwynedd, Powys, Ceredigion, Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire, Swansea, Neath Port Talbot, Bridgend, the Vale of Glamorgan, Rhondda Cynon Taf, Merthyr Tydfil, Cardiff, Caerphilly, Blaenau Gwent, Torfaen, Newport, and Monmouthshire.

In the 1990s about 25% of the population spoke Welsh, although in certain regions the percentage was much higher. The Univ. of Wales was created in 1893 by royal charter; it is the collective name for several constituent institutions, four of them—at Lampeter (1826), Aberystwyth (1872), Cardiff (1883), and Bangor (1884)—predating the university's incorporation.

Economy

N Wales is characterized by farms and pastoral highlands. There had been some industrial development around the coal fields centered on Wrexham, but the fields have largely been closed. The coastal towns of the Lleyn Peninsula (Gwynedd) are tourist and vacation centers for N England's industrial cities. The industrial wealth of Wales is concentrated in the southern counties bordering on the Bristol Channel. This area has large steelworks ( Port Talbot ), oil refineries ( Milford Haven ), tinplate and copper foundries, and the once-rich S Wales coal fields. The southeast also has the greatest concentration of investment in Britain, predominantly in electronics. Other important industrial cities and ports are Newport , Cardiff , Swansea , and Tenby. The labor force has tended to drift into the southern industrial areas, leaving the north sparsely populated. With the decline of the coal industry, the Welsh economy has become increasingly reliant on consumer electronics, automotive parts, chemicals, and tourism, information technology, and other service-related industries.

History

Early History

Welsh tradition stretches back into prehistory (see Celt ; Great Britain ). In the first centuries AD, Celtic-speaking clans of shepherds, farmers, and forest dwellers defended their homes against Roman invaders, who penetrated the north to found Segontium (near Caernarvon) and the south to found Maridunum (now Carmarthen). But the Roman effect upon Wales was light, and Welsh clans continued to dominate large areas of Great Britain, north to the Clyde and the Firth of Forth and south past the Bristol Channel into present Somerset, Devonshire, and Cornwall. They were converted to Christianity by Celtic monks, notably St. David . Although the Anglo-Saxon conquest of E Britain (late 5th cent.) did not seriously affect the Welsh, the invaders did thrust between the main body of Welsh and those south of the Bristol Channel (who nevertheless maintained their national identity for centuries).

Border wars were chronic between the Welsh and the seven English kingdoms known as the heptarchy. The sturdy Welsh fighters, who took the name Cymry [compatriots], withstood the forces of the kings of Mercia and Wessex and later the harrying of the Norsemen. The disparate clans of pastoral people gradually coalesced. Hywel Dda, king of Wales in the mid-10th cent., collected Welsh law and custom into a unified code. At the same time the position of the bard , which was later to yield a wealth of poetry, music, and learning, was formalized. Defense of the besieged hills went on, and Gruffydd ap Llywelyn , the ruler of Wales, maintained Welsh independence until his death in 1063.

English Incursion to Union

William I of England tried to deal with the Welsh by setting up border earldoms to protect his newly won kingdom from their incursions. The power of the border earls (see Welsh Marches ) grew steadily, and Wales was increasingly threatened with English conquest, although Welsh foot soldiers, moving swiftly and secretly over the mountain paths, resisted through 200 years of guerrilla warfare. When the English made inroads in the north, Rhys ap Tewdr held sway in the south, and only after his death (1093) did the Anglo-Norman barons take full possession of the Vale of Glamorgan. Dissension within England in the early 12th cent. relaxed pressure on the Welsh princes, and medieval Welsh culture approached its full blossom (see eisteddfod ; Mabinogion ).

Nevertheless, although invasions from England were repeatedly thwarted and although Llywelyn ap Iorwerth (d. 1240) united the Welsh and gained power by skillfully intervening in the troubled English affairs of King John, the end was certain. During the reign of Llywelyn's grandson, Llywelyn ap Gruffydd , English conquest of Wales was finally accomplished by Edward I in 1282. The Statute of Rhuddlan (1284) established English rule. To placate Welsh sentiment, Edward had his son (later Edward II), who had been born at Caernarvon Castle, made prince of Wales in 1301; thus originated the English custom of entitling the king's eldest son prince of Wales.

Changes in Welsh life, although few, included a gradual cultural decline and the growth of market towns through trade with England. Wool became a staple source of revenue. The Norman barons were left undisturbed in their marcher lordships. Early in the 15th cent. Owen Glendower led a revolt that had a brief but amazing success, and Welsh leaders continued to seek advantage from disturbances in the domestic affairs of their conquerors. Henry VII , the first Tudor king, who ascended the English throne in 1485, was the grandson of Owen Tudor , a Welshman. Tudor policy toward Wales was one of assimilation on a basis of equality. Welsh lands, including the marches, were converted into shires, and primogeniture replaced the old Welsh system of tenure (see gavelkind ).

Leading Welsh families held their lands from the king; the others became leaseholders and tenants after the English pattern. The feudal aristocracy became versed in English manners and were received at the English court. Thus a deep breach, fostered by economic inequality, opened between landlord and tenant and remained unhealed for centuries. A judicial council of Wales, dating from the 15th cent., enhanced royal authority. The Act of Union (1536) and supplementary legislation completed the process of administrative assimilation by abolishing all Welsh customary law at variance with the English and by establishing English as the language of all legal proceedings. Welsh representatives entered the English Parliament; from 1536 onward, the separate history of Wales was mainly religious and cultural.

Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries

The Reformation came belatedly to Wales. Catholic tradition died slowly under Elizabeth I and James I; Puritanism was stoutly resisted, and the Welsh supported Charles I in the English civil war . Oliver Cromwell had to use oppressive measures to get the Welsh to adopt Puritan practices. In the 18th cent. Wales turned rapidly from the Established Church to dissent with strong Calvinist leanings. This was accompanied by great advances in the field of popular education, which attained unusually high standards. Welsh evangelicism had links with the English movement but was actually a native development. The Calvinistic Methodist Church gathered in great numbers of Welsh from the Church of England and bolstered Welsh nationalism, one of the most successful nonpolitical nationalist movements of the world. The strong hold of evangelical Protestantism on Wales was to make the establishment of the Church of England there the dominant question in Welsh politics in the later 19th cent.; one of the last acts of Parliament that applied to Wales alone was the disestablishment of the church in 1914.

Long before that time the tenor and tempo of Welsh life had been changed by the Industrial Revolution. The mineral wealth of Wales was opened to exploitation, at first in the north, then in the rich coal fields of the south. The accent shifted from the sheep walks and farms to the coal pits and factories. By the early 19th cent. the effects of industrialization threatened both cottage industry and agriculture. The distress of rural Wales was dramatically evidenced in the Rebecca Riots of 1843, when poor farmers destroyed toll booths, and in the emigration of large numbers of Welshmen, many to the United States. Numerous company towns sprang up in S Wales, which by the late 19th cent. was the world's chief coal-exporting region. With the benefits of industrialization, however, came poverty and unemployment, which intensified in the years of economic decline following World War I, particularly in the late 1920s and the 1930s.

Twentieth Century

Although Welsh interests had spokesmen in the British government in the early 20th cent.—the flamboyant David Lloyd George and the Welsh supporters of the Liberal party—chronic poverty and increasing unemployment continued almost unchecked until World War II. After the wartime industrial boom the Labour government, which drew substantial support from the socialist stronghold of S Wales, undertook a full-scale program of industrial redevelopment. This included reorganization of the coal mines and tinplate manufacture under government control, introduction of diversified industry, and improvement of communications, housing, and technical education. These actions did not save the coal industry; most of the mines in Wales have been closed, and the few remaining ones have been privatized.

As in earlier days, Welsh nationalism has undergone a revival since the mid-20th cent., with a special interest in education and the arts. The modern National Eisteddfod perpetuates interest in Welsh language, poetry, and choral music. Since 1944, primary and secondary schools have been established with Welsh as the sole language of instruction. A Welsh-language television channel opened in 1982, and there are several Welsh arts, opera, and literature councils on the national level (see also Welsh literature ). In 1979, Welsh voters decisively defeated a British proposal for limited home rule, but in 1997 they narrowly passed a referendum to establish a 60-member assembly. Elections were held in 1999, with the Labour party winning the most seats and forming a coalition with the Liberal Democrats; the nationalist Plaid Cymru party became the chief opposition. Labour formed a government alone after the 2003 vote and in coalition with Plaid Cymru after the 2007 elections. Parliamentary legislation passed in 2006 and effective in mid-2007 allows the assembly to enact laws for Wales, subject to approval from the British parliament, in areas in which the assembly has devolved responsibilities.

Bibliography

See J. Rhys and D. B. Jones, The Welsh People (1906, repr. 1969); A. H. Williams, An Introduction to the History of Wales (2 vol., 1962); K. O. Morgan, Wales in British Politics 1868-1922 (1963), Rebirth of a Nation: Wales, 1880-1980 (1981), and Modern Wales: Politics, Places, People (1996); W. Davies, Wales in the Early Middle Ages (1982); D. Smith, Wales! Wales? (1984); J. Davies, A History of Wales (1993, repr. 1995); A. D. Carr, Medieval Wales (1995).

Wales Principality of the United Kingdom, occupying a broad peninsula in w Great Britain; the capital is Cardiff. Other major cities include Swansea.

Land and climate

In the n lies Wales' highest peak, Snowdon, at 1085m (3560ft). Anglesey lies off the nw coast. The Black Mountains lie in the se. The border regions and coastal plains are lowlands. The principal rivers are the Severn and Dee. On average, Cardiff experiences twice as much annual rainfall as London. Winter sees the heaviest rains.

History

The Celtic-speaking Welsh stoutly resisted Roman invasion in the first centuries ad. In the 5th century, Saint David introduced Christianity. In the 10th century, political power was centralized. In the 11th century, the English conquered the border counties and established the Welsh Marches. In 1284, the Welsh were forced to relinquish their independence, and in 1301 Prince Edward (later Edward II) became Prince of Wales. In the early 15th century, Owain Glyn Dw̧r led spirited resistance to English rule. The accession of the Welsh Tudor dynasty to the English throne paved the way for the Act of Union (1536) of England and Wales. Wales supported the Royalist cause in the English Civil Wars. In the late 19th century, Wales became the world's leading producer of coal. Rapid industrialization brought large social problems, such as unemployment and poverty. From the 18th century, Wales had been a centre of Nonconformism, and Calvinism injected new life into Welsh nationalism. In 1914, the Church of England disestablished in Wales. The Welsh nationalist party (Plaid Cymru) was founded in 1926. The post-war Labour government, consisting of many Welsh members, nationalized industry and began to deal with regional inequality. In 1966, Plaid Cymru gained its first seat in the House of Commons. A 1979 referendum voted against devolution. The teaching of Welsh in schools and a separate Welsh-language television channel (since 1982) served to strengthen the distinctive Welsh culture. A 1997 referendum approved, by the narrowest of margins, the establishment of a separate Welsh Assembly in Cardiff.

Economy

North Wales is predominantly agricultural, with the world's greatest density of sheep. Dairy farming is also important. Tourism is important in the coastal region of Gwynedd. The s valleys and coastal plain are Wales' industrial heartland. The late 20th-century decline of its traditional heavy industries of coal and steel has been only partly offset by investment in light industries, such as electronics. Unemployment remains high (1996, 8.3% of the workforce). Area: 20,761sq km (8016sq mi). Pop. (1994) 2,913,000.

Wales (Welsh Cymru) The western part of Great Britain and a principality of the UNITED KINGDOM.

Physical

Wales measures roughly 225 km (140 miles) from north to south and between 60 and 160 km from west to east, where it borders England. This border region, the Marches, is a stretch of pasture-land much broken by hills, woods, and twisting rivers. It rises to the Cambrian Mountains, which stretch down the centre of the country. In the south-east are the Brecon Beacons and coalfields, and in the south-west the Pembroke Peninsula with its rocky coasts. Snowdonia is in the north-west. There are deposits of coal and slate and water is an important Welsh resource.

Economy

Coalmining and steel production were the main economic activities in Wales until the 1980s, when depletion of the coal seams led to closure of most of the mines. In the 1930s unemployment rose dramatically and the government encouraged industrial diversification. Petrochemical industries have concentrated in South Wales around the deep-water port of Milford Haven. Forestry and farming, especially the rearing of sheep and cattle, remain important.

History

The population of Wales, which is Celtic in origin, resisted the Romans (who penetrated as far as Anglesey in a campaign against the DRUIDS), and after the departure of the Romans was increased in size by British refugees from the SAXON invaders (c.400). By the 7th century Wales was isolated from the other Celtic lands of Cornwall and Scotland. Christianity was gradually spread throughout Wales by such missionaries as St Illtud and St DAVID, but politically the land remained disunited, having many different tribes, kingdoms, and jurisdictions; Gwynedd, Deheubarth, Powys, and Dyfed emerged as the largest kingdoms, one notable ruler being Hwyel Dda (the Good), traditionally associated with an important code of laws.

From the 11th century the Normans colonized and feudalized much of Wales and Romanized the Church, but the native Welsh retained their own laws and tribal organization. There were several uprisings but as each revolt was crushed the English kings tightened their grip. Although LLYWELYN AP IORWERTH (the Great) (ruled 1194–1240) recovered a measure of independence, EDWARD I's invasion in 1277 ended hopes of a Welsh state: Llywelyn II was killed in 1282, and in 1301 Edward of Caernavon (EDWARD II) was made Prince of Wales. Thereafter Wales was divided between the Principality, royal lands, and virtually independent marcher lordships. The unsuccessful revolt of Owen GLENDOWER in the early 15th century revived Welsh aspirations, but HENRY VIII, the son of the Welsh HENRY VII, united Wales with England in 1536, bringing it within the English legal and parliamentary systems. Welsh culture was eroded as the gentry and Church became Anglicized, although most of the population spoke only Welsh, given a standard form in the Bible of 1588, until the 19th century. The strong hold of the NONCONFORMISTS, especially of the Baptists and Methodists, made the formal position of the Anglican Church there the dominant question of Welsh politics in the later 19th century, leading to the disestablishment of the Church from 1920. The social unrest of rural Wales, voiced in the Rebecca riots, resulted in significant emigration. The INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION brought prosperity to South Wales but during the Great DEPRESSION in the 1930s many people lost their jobs. Unemployment was exacerbated by the closure of most of the coalfields by the 1980s and remains a problem despite the introduction of a more diversified industry. Political, cultural, and linguistic nationalism survive, and have manifested themselves in the PLAID CYMRU party, the National Eisteddfod, and Welsh-language campaigns. A Welsh referendum in 1979 voted against partial devolution from the United Kingdom. A second referendum in 1997 reversed this decision by a small majority and a Welsh Assembly was established in 1999, with Alun Michael (1943– ) as first secretary.