Portal:Wales

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Wales (Welsh: Cymru [ˈkəm.rɨ] ^ⓘ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is 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 south-west. As of the 2021 census, it had a population of 3,107,494. It has a total area of 21,218 square kilometres (8,192 sq mi) and over 2,700 kilometres (1,680 mi) of coastline. It is largely mountainous with its higher peaks in the north and central areas, including Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa), its highest summit. The country lies within the north temperate zone and has a changeable, maritime climate. The capital and largest city is Cardiff.

A distinct Welsh culture emerged among the Celtic Britons after the Roman withdrawal from Britain in the 5th century, and Wales was briefly united under Gruffydd ap Llywelyn in 1055. After over 200 years of war, the conquest of Wales by King Edward I of England was completed by 1283, though Owain Glyndŵr led the Welsh Revolt against English rule in the early 15th century, and briefly re-established an independent Welsh state with its own national parliament (Welsh: senedd). In the 16th century the whole of Wales was annexed by England and incorporated within the English legal system under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. Distinctive Welsh politics developed in the 19th century. Welsh Liberalism, exemplified in the early 20th century by David Lloyd George, was displaced by the growth of socialism and the Labour Party. Welsh national feeling grew over the century: a nationalist party, Plaid Cymru, was formed in 1925, and the Welsh Language Society in 1962. A governing system of Welsh devolution is employed in Wales, of which the most major step was the formation of the Senedd (Welsh Parliament, formerly the National Assembly for Wales) in 1998, responsible for a range of devolved policy matters. (Full article...)

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Flat Holm (Welsh: Ynys Echni) is a limestone island lying in the Bristol Channel approximately 6 km (4 mi) from Lavernock Point in the Vale of Glamorgan, but in the City and County of Cardiff. It includes the most southerly point of Wales. It is now managed by Cardiff Council's Flat Holm Project Team and designated as a Local Nature Reserve, Site of Special Scientific Interest and a Special Protection Area, because of the maritime grassland and rare plants such as Rock Sea-Lavender (Limonium binervosum) and Wild Leek (Allium ampeloprasum). The island also has significant breeding colonies of Lesser Black-backed Gull (Larus fuscus), Herring Gull (Larus argentatus) and Great Black-backed Gull (Larus marinus). It is also home to Slow worms (Anguis fragilis) with larger than usual blue markings.

The island has a long history of occupation, dating at least from Anglo-Saxon and Viking periods. Religious uses include visits by disciples of Saint Cadoc in the 6th century, and in 1835 it was the site of the foundation of the Bristol Channel Mission, which later became the Mission to Seafarers. A sanatorium for cholera patients was built in 1896 as the isolation hospital for the port of Cardiff. Guglielmo Marconi transmitted the first wireless signals over open sea from Flat Holm to Lavernock. Because of frequent shipwrecks a lighthouse was built on the island, which was replaced by a Trinity House lighthouse in 1737. Because of its strategic position on the approaches to Bristol and Cardiff a series of gun emplacements, known as Flat Holm Battery, were built in the 1860s as part of a line of defences, known as Palmerston Forts. On the outbreak of World War II, the island was rearmed.

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Portmeirion is an Italianate village designed and built by Sir Clough Williams-Ellis between 1925 and 1975. It has served as the location for numerous films and television shows, most famously serving as The Village in the 1960s television show The Prisoner.

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Did you know...?

... that Welsh boxer Barry Jones lost his WBO Super featherweight title through events caused by an anomaly in a brain scan?
... that Arthur Cheetham's film of children playing on the beach at Rhyl is recognised as the first film of the Cinema of Wales?
... that the churchyard of St Caian's Church, Tregaian, contains the grave of a man who died in 1581 aged 105 with over 40 children and 300 living descendants?
... that after a fox took shelter in the ruins of Capel Lligwy, in Anglesey, a vault was discovered containing "a large mass of human bones, several feet in depth"?

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It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobblestreets silent and the hunched, courters'-and-rabbits' wood limping invisible down to the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing sea.

— Dylan Thomas, Under Milk Wood (1954)

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David Watts Morgan CBE DSO JP (18 December 1867 – 23 February 1933) was a Welsh trade unionist, a Labour politician, and a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1918 to 1933, described as "[straddling] the transition in south Wales miners' politics from Lib-Labism to socialism, but ... never fully representative of either".

Born in Skewen in 1867, Morgan began to work in coal mines from the age of eleven. He was elected unopposed to Glamorgan County Council in 1902, in which year he also joined the newly-founded South Wales Miners' Federation. He enlisted in 1914, and encouraged Rhondda miners to enlist in the army in 1914 following the outbreak of the First World War, for which he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire. He initially served in the Welsh Regiment, before becoming a lieutenant-colonel in the Labour Corps. Morgan was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for bravery at the Battle of Cambrai in 1917, earning him the nickname Dai Alphabet in South Wales. In February 1918, he was selected as the Labour candidate for the newly formed Rhondda East constituency, and was returned again in the 1922, 1923 and 1931 general elections.

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Wikinews Wales portal

General images

The following are images from various Wales-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Harlech Castle was one of a series built by Edward I to consolidate his conquest. (from History of Wales)
Image 2Standard of Bleddyn ap Cynfyn, King of Powys 1063-1075. (from History of Wales)
Image 3Island of Britain in AD 500. (from History of Wales)
Image 4Big Pit, National Coal Museum. (from History of Wales)
Image 5Two of the furnaces of the Blaenavon Ironworks (from History of Wales)
Image 6Medieval crwth instrument (from Culture of Wales)
Image 7Crempog - Anglesey style (from Culture of Wales)
Image 8The Bard, 1774, by Thomas Jones (1742–1803) (from Culture of Wales)
Image 9The Flag of Saint David (from Culture of Wales)
Image 10Owain Glyndŵr (from History of Wales)
Image 11King Hywel Dda depicted in a 13th-century manuscript (from History of Wales)
Image 12Portrait of William Morgan. (from History of Wales)
Image 13Roman invasion of Wales. (from History of Wales)
Image 14Gravestone of King Cadfan ap Iago of Gwynedd (died c. 625) in Llangadwaladr church (from History of Wales)
Image 15Medieval kingdoms of Wales shown within the boundaries of the present day country of Wales and not inclusive of all (from History of Wales)
Image 16Owain Glyndŵr painting by AC Michael (from Culture of Wales)
Image 17Facsimile of Part of Column 579 from the Red Book of Hergest (from Culture of Wales)
Image 18Red Dragon of Wales (from Culture of Wales)
Image 19Tom Jones performing with Janis Joplin in 1969 (from Culture of Wales)
Image 20'The Welsh at Mametz Wood' painted by Christopher Williams, commissioned by Secretary of State for War at the time, David Lloyd George. (from History of Wales)
Image 21Caradog by Thomas Prydderch. Caradog led multiple celtic tribes against the Romans. (from History of Wales)
Image 22Offa's Dyke (Clawdd Offa) Map. (from History of Wales)
Image 23Cawl, a Welsh dish of meat and vegetables (from Culture of Wales)
Image 24Market Day in Old Wales by Sydney Curnow Vosper (1910) (from Culture of Wales)
Image 25Senedd-Welsh Parliament, Cardiff Bay. (from History of Wales)

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