Cardiff is the capital and largest city of Wales. Cardiff had a population of 362,310 in 2021, and forms a principal area officially known as the City and County of Cardiff. The city is the eleventh-largest in the United Kingdom. Located in the south-east of Wales and in the Cardiff Capital Region, Cardiff is the county town of the historic county of Glamorgan and in 1974–1996 of South Glamorgan. It belongs to the Eurocities network of the largest European cities. A small town until the early 19th century, its prominence as a port for coal when mining began in the region helped its expansion. In 1905, it was ranked as a city and in 1955 proclaimed capital of Wales. Cardiff Built-up Area covers a larger area outside the county boundary, including the towns of Dinas Powys and Penarth.
Swansea is a coastal city and the second-largest city of Wales. It forms a principal area, officially known as the City and County of Swansea.
Since 1 April 1996, Wales has been divided into 22 single-tier principal areas, styled as counties or county boroughs for local government purposes. The elected councils of these areas are responsible for the provision of all local government services, including education, social work, environmental protection, and most highways. Below these there are also elected community councils to which responsibility for specific aspects of the application of local policy may be devolved. The last set of local elections in Wales took place in 2022, with the next due to take place in 2027.
Swansea Bay is a bay on the southern coast of Wales. The River Neath, River Tawe, River Afan, River Kenfig and Clyne River flow into the bay. Swansea Bay and the upper reaches of the Bristol Channel experience a large tidal range. The shipping ports in Swansea Bay are Swansea Docks, Port Talbot Docks and Briton Ferry wharfs.
South Wales is a loosely defined region of Wales bordered by England to the east and mid Wales to the north. Generally considered to include the historic counties of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire, south Wales extends westwards to include Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire. In the western extent, from Swansea westwards, local people would probably recognise that they lived in both south Wales and west Wales. The Brecon Beacons National Park covers about a third of south Wales, containing Pen y Fan, the highest British mountain south of Cadair Idris in Snowdonia.
Sir Terence Hedley Matthews is a Welsh-Canadian business magnate, serial high-tech entrepreneur, and Wales' first billionaire. He was the richest man in Wales until 2012, when he was surpassed by Sir Michael Moritz.
The economy of Wales is part of the wider economy of the United Kingdom, and encompasses the production and consumption of goods, services and the supply of money in Wales.
The Severn Barrage is any of a range of ideas for building a barrage from the English coast to the Welsh coast over the Severn tidal estuary. Ideas for damming or barraging the Severn estuary have existed since the 19th century. The building of such a barrage would constitute an engineering project comparable with some of the world's biggest. The purposes of such a project have typically been one or several of: transport links, flood protection, harbour creation, or tidal power generation. In recent decades it is the latter that has grown to be the primary focus for barrage ideas, and the others are now seen as useful side-effects. Following the Severn Tidal Power Feasibility Study (2008–10), the British government concluded that there was no strategic case for building a barrage but to continue to investigate emerging technologies. In June 2013 the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee published its findings after an eight-month study of the arguments for and against the Barrage. MPs said the case for the barrage was unproven. They were not convinced the economic case was strong enough and said the developer, Hafren Power, had failed to answer serious environmental and economic concerns.
Transport in Cardiff, capital and most populous city in Wales involves road, rail, bus, water and air. It is a major city of the United Kingdom and a centre of employment, government, retail, business, culture, media, sport and higher education.
The City and County of Swansea is an urban centre with a largely rural hinterland in Gower; the city has been described as the regional centre for South West Wales. Swansea's travel to work area, not coterminous with the local authority, also contained the Swansea Valley in 1991; the new 2001-based version merges the Swansea, Neath & Port Talbot, and Llanelli areas into a new Swansea Bay travel to work area. Formerly an industrial centre, most employment in the city is now in the service sector.
Alun Hugh Cairns is a Welsh Conservative Party politician serving as the member of Parliament (MP) for Vale of Glamorgan since 2010. He served as Secretary of State for Wales from 2016 to 2019.
The Swansea Bay area of Wales is located north of the sea area of Swansea Bay. The term Swansea Bay is used by the Welsh Government for policy planning purposes as well as by a number of other organisations.
The South Wales Metro is an integrated heavy rail, light rail and bus-based public transport services and systems network currently being developed in South East Wales around the hub of Cardiff Central. The first phase was approved for development in October 2013. Works are currently under way, with a brand new depot under construction at Taff's Well and new trains being built by Stadler Rail in Switzerland. The development will also include the electrification of the core Valley Lines and new stations.
Altaf Hussain is a Welsh Conservative politician, serving from 2015 to 2016 and again since re-elected in 2021 as the Member of the Senedd for South Wales West. He is also a retired consultant orthopaedic surgeon.
Tidal Lagoon Swansea Bay was a proposed tidal lagoon power plant that was to be constructed in Swansea Bay off the south coast of Wales, United Kingdom. Development consent was granted by the UK government in June 2015, and in June 2018 the Welsh Government approved the plan and offered to invest £200 million; however, later that month the UK government withdrew its support on value-for-money grounds. Other options to enable the proposal to go ahead were reportedly still being explored.
In 2019, Wales generated 27% of its electricity consumption as renewable electricity, an increase from 19% in 2014. The Welsh Government set a target of 70% by 2030. In 2019, Wales was a net exporter of electricity. It produced 27.9 TWh of electricity while only consuming 14.7 TWh. The natural resource base for renewable energy is high by European standards, with the core sources being wind, wave, and tidal. Wales has a long history of renewable energy: in the 1880s, the first house in Wales with electric lighting powered from its own hydro-electric power station was in Plas Tan y Bwlch, Gwynedd. In 1963, the Ffestiniog Power Station was constructed, providing a large scale generation of hydroelectricity, and in November 1973, the Centre for Alternative Technology was opened in Machynlleth.
The Cardiff Capital Region is a city region in Wales, centred on the capital city of Wales, Cardiff, in the southeast of the country. It is a partnership between the ten local authorities of Blaenau Gwent, Bridgend County Borough, Caerphilly County Borough, Cardiff, Merthyr Tydfil County Borough, Monmouthshire, Newport, Rhondda Cynon Taf, Torfaen, and Vale of Glamorgan, local businesses in southeast Wales and other organisations. The regional city deal is funded by the UK Government and Welsh Government. The Cardiff Capital Region includes the cities of Cardiff and Newport, and most of the South Wales Valleys, with the region being coterminous with the area defined as South East Wales.
Wales has traditionally been divided into a number of ambiguous and ill-defined areas described as "regions", reflecting historical, geographical, administrative, cultural and electoral boundaries within the country. Presently, the most common form of division of Wales into "regions" has been using cardinal and intercardinal references: north or south-west for example. None of the variously described "regions" have official status or defined boundaries; neither is there a fixed number of regions. Various organisations use different regions and combinations of regions for their individual purposes. This includes devolved institutions, such as Visit Wales, Natural Resources Wales, and the Welsh Government itself, using different sets of Wales' regions. Wales is most commonly sub-divided into between two and four regions, with a North–South divide, and North, Mid, South East and South West division being common. This article lists the various terms applied to be the "regions of Wales" and the regions used by various organisations.
Regional economy in Wales is centred on four regional economic boards in Wales. Each board oversees a city or growth deal, signed between 2016 and 2022, lasting 10–15 years. Two of the deals are city deals signed and proposed by their respective economic boards, and their areas are described as "city regions"; the Cardiff Capital Region and Swansea Bay City Region. Whereas in North Wales, the North Wales Economic Ambition Board negotiated a North Wales growth deal signed in 2020, and in Mid Wales, the Growing Mid Wales Partnership, led negotiations for a Mid Wales growth deal signed in 2022. The programmes are based on the City deal and Growth deal initiatives set up by the Coalition UK Government in 2012, to promote the decentralisation of the UK economy, by stimulating local economic growth.
Energy in Wales is the production of electricity in Wales.
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