a peninsula in western Great Britain, bounded to the south by the Bristol Channel, to the north by the Irish Sea, and to the west by Cardigan Bay and St. George’s Channel. It has a jagged coastline and predominantly ingressive and rocky shores. Most of the territory is occupied by the Cambrian Mountains, which rise to 1,085 m on Mount Snowdon. In the south lies the South Wales Coalfield. The climate is temperate and maritime, with mean temperatures of 5°–6°C in January and 15°–17°C in July. The plains receive 750–1,500 mm of precipitation annually and the mountains more than 2,500 mm in places. Peat bogs, meadows, and heaths cover the summits, and broad-leaved forests of oak, beech, and ash are found on the plains and foothills. The Brecon Beacons and Snowdonia national parks are on the peninsula.
an administrative and political subdivision of Great Britain, occupying the peninsula of Wales and the adjacent island of Anglesey. Wales has an area of 20,800 sq km and a population of 2.7 million (1973). The capital is Cardiff. Under the administrative reform of 1973–75, Wales was divided into eight counties: Clwyd, Gwynedd, Dyfed, Powys, Gwent, Mid Glamorgan, South Glamorgan, and West Glamorgan. The indigenous inhabitants, called Welshmen, have preserved their national identity and culture and to some extent their native language, which has largely given way to English in the north and south.
Economy. The economic development of South Wales, an important industrial region and Great Britain’s ferrous metallurgy center, is linked with the South Wales Coalfield. The leading branches of industry in the south are coal mining (chiefly around Rhondda), ferrous metallurgy (Port Talbot, Newport, Llanelly, Cardiff, Ebbw Vale), nonferrous metallurgy (Swansea, Llanelly), oil refining (Llandarcy, Milford Haven, Pembroke, Barry), and the manufacture of petrochemicals and chemicals (Baglan Bay, Barry). The economy of North Wales, less developed industrially, rests on coal mining, ferrous metallurgy (Shotton), chemical manufacture, and machine building. In the predominantly agricultural central and western parts of Wales sheep and cattle are raised in the mountainous areas and crops are cultivated in the coastal lowlands.
Historical survey. The oldest settlements in Wales date from the third millennium B.C. Celtic tribes called Cymry began settling in the area probably around 1000 B.C. Roman rule, which lasted from the end of the first century to the beginning of the fifth century AD., extended only over a narrow coastal strip, mostly in southeastern Wales. During the second half of the seventh century, as a result of the Anglo-Saxon conquest of the British Isles, the Celts of Wales, together with the Britons who had retreated into the area, were isolated from the other Celtic-speaking areas. Out of these Celts and Britons evolved the Welsh nation. In this period the Welsh were organized into large clans, vestiges of which survived in the mountain regions of Wales into the 20th century. The first efforts to unify Wales politically date from the ninth century.
At the end of the 11th century, after the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, the Anglo-Norman feudal lords subjugated the parts of Wales that bordered on England. The interior regions remained virtually independent down to the late 13th century. It was not until 1282–84 that English troops succeeded in breaking the resistance of the Welsh and asserting English domination over all of Wales. In 1301, Wales was given as a fief to the son of the English king Edward III, and since that time the heir to the British throne has been called the Prince of Wales. Welsh uprisings against English domination, the most important of which was the early 15th-century rebellion led by Owen Glendower, were harshly suppressed. Hitherto nominally an autonomous principality, Wales was fully united with England in 1536. During the English Civil War (17th century) economically backward Wales was a hotbed of royalist conspiracies and revolts.
In the 18th century, in the course of the industrial revolution, Wales became a major center of coal mining, metallurgy, and the textile industry. From the late 18th century the working people of Wales played an important role in the labor movement of Great Britain. They were active in the Chartist movement, which culminated in the Newport Uprising of 1839. In February 1843 disturbances, known as the Rebecca Riots, broke out among Welsh farm laborers and small tenant farmers. From the late 19th century there was a growing desire to make Welsh an official language along with English; this demand was met by the British government only in 1967. Wales was one of the centers of the shop-steward movement, the “hands off Russia” movement, the class struggles of 1919–21 and 1929–33, and the General Strike of 1926.
Since World War II, declining production in the coal and shipbuilding industries and reduced railroad shipping have sharply affected the welfare of the working people of Wales, many of whom are employed in these traditional branches. The movement for national autonomy and self-rule, a major political goal since the 19th century, has gained momentum. The Wales Trades Union Council was established in 1973. The position of the Plaid Cymru, a nationalist party founded in 1925, has been strengthened. Although it condemns bourgeois-separatist views on the nationality question, the Communist Party of Great Britain has repeatedly supported the Welsh people’s struggle for the creation of an autonomous parliament and for the right to solve independently problems relating to the economic, social, and cultural development of Wales.
Architecture and art. The artistic culture of Wales passed through the same developmental stages as English art. Welsh folk architecture and decorative-applied art are highly distinctive. The peasant farms and cottages of Wales, built on hillside slopes for protection against the wind, have severe rectangular forms and low pitched roofs. Their rough stone walls are sometimes whitewashed or painted yellow or pink.
The most popular forms of folk decorative-applied art are weaving (tweed and Welsh flannel), furniture-making (with geometrical or sometimes floral decoration), pottery (black designs under a greenish yellow glaze), and the carving of wooden vessels.