North Wales (Welsh Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, in England by some along the Welsh border, in the Welsh immigrant colony in the Chubut Valley in Argentine Patagonia, and the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand: Gogledd Cymru) is the northernmost unofficial region of Wales Wales ( /ˈweɪlz/ Welsh: Cymru; pronounced [ˈkəmrɨ] (help·info)) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom, bordered by England to its east, and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. Wales has a population estimated at three million and is officially bilingual; Welsh and English have equal status, and bilingual signs are the, bordered to the south by Mid Wales Mid Wales is the name given to central region of Wales. The Mid Wales Regional Committee of the National Assembly for Wales covered the counties of Ceredigion and Powys and the area of Gwynedd comprising the former district of Meirionydd. A similar definition is used by the BBC. The Wales Spatial Plan defines a region known as "Central Wales& and to the east by England. North Wales comprises the region historically known as Gwynedd Gwynedd is a county in north-west Wales, named after the old Kingdom of Gwynedd. Although one of the biggest in terms of geographical area, it is also one of the most sparsely populated. A large proportion of the population is Welsh-speaking between the River Dyfi in the south and the River Dee in the east. North Wales is comrpised of three historic regions. Upper Gwynedd, or Gwynedd above the Conwy ( Welsh:Gwynedd Uwch Conwy), defined as the area north of the River Dyfi and west of the Conwy. Lower Gwynedd (Welsh: Gwynedd Is Conwy), or Gwynedd below the Conwy also known as the Perfeddwlad, defined as the region east of the Conwy and west of the River Dee. Ynys Môn (Anglesey), comprises the third historic province of the region.[citation needed].

The southern boundary is arbitrary and its definition may depend on the use being made of the term. For example the boundary of North Wales Police differs from the boundary of the North Wales area of the Environment Agency Wales

Contents

History

see also History of Gwynedd during the High Middle Ages

North Wales is steeped in history. In 1210, English King John John was King of England from 6 April 1199 until his death. He acceded to the throne as the younger brother of King Richard I, who died without issue. John was the youngest of five sons of King Henry II of England and Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine, and was their second surviving son to ascend the throne; thus, he continued the line of Plantagenet invaded Gwynedd Gwynedd is a county in north-west Wales, named after the old Kingdom of Gwynedd. Although one of the biggest in terms of geographical area, it is also one of the most sparsely populated. A large proportion of the population is Welsh-speaking a county of North Wales, Llywelyn ap Iorwerth Llywelyn the Great , full name Llywelyn ab Iorwerth, (c. 1173 – 11 April 1240) was a Prince of Gwynedd in north Wales and eventually de facto ruler over most of Wales. He is occasionally called Llywelyn I of Wales. By a combination of war and diplomacy he dominated Wales for forty years, and was one of only two Welsh rulers to be called 'the, one of the greatest of the medieval Welsh kings was forced to retreat to the mountainous areas to the West. When John found himself embroiled in struggles with his Barons and the Pope, Llywelyn was able to reassert his authority in North Wales. In 1216, Llywelyn went on to preside over a National Assembly for Wales The National Assembly for Wales is a devolved assembly with power to make legislation in Wales. The Assembly comprises 60 members, who are known as Assembly Members, or AMs (Welsh: Aelod y Cynulliad / Aelod Seneddol). Members are elected for four year terms under an additional members system, where forty AMs represent geographical constituencies, a position confirmed at the Peace of Worcester in 1218, by Henry III Henry III was the son and successor of John as King of England, reigning for fifty-six years from 1216 to his death. His contemporaries knew him as Henry of Winchester. He was the first child king in England since the reign of Æthelred the Unready. England prospered during his reign and his greatest monument is Westminster, which he made the seat.[1]

World Heritage Sites

North Wales is home to five of the six UNESCO World Heritage sites A UNESCO World Heritage Site is a place that is listed by UNESCO as of special cultural or physical significance. The list is maintained by the international World Heritage Programme administered by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, composed of 21 state parties which are elected by their General Assembly for a four-year term in Wales, including:Caernarfon Castle Caernarfon Castle was constructed at Caernarfon in Gwynedd, north-west Wales, by King Edward I of England, following his conquest of Gwynedd in 1283. Caernarfon Castle is part of the World Heritage site 'Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in Gwynedd', Beaumaris Castle Beaumaris Castle, located in Beaumaris, Anglesey, Wales was built as part of King Edward I's campaign to conquer the north of Wales. It was designed by James of St. George and was begun in 1295, but never completed. Beaumaris has been designated as a World Heritage site,[2] Conwy Castle Conwy Castle is a castle in Conwy, on the north coast of Wales. It was built between 1283 and 1289 during King Edward I's second campaign in North Wales, Harlech Castle and Pontcysyllte Aqueduct The Pontcysyllte Aqueduct is a navigable aqueduct that carries the Llangollen Canal over the valley of the River Dee, between the villages of Trevor and Froncysyllte, in Wrexham in north east Wales. Completed in 1805, it is the longest and highest aqueduct in Britain, a Grade I Listed Building and a World Heritage Site. The name is in the Welsh.

Political divisions

Traditionally, most of North Wales was covered by the Early Middle Ages post Roman kingdom of Gwynedd Gwynedd is one of several Welsh successor states that emerged in 5th-century post-Roman Britain. It was based on the former Brythonic tribal lands of the Ordovices, Gangani, and the Deceangli which were collectively known as Venedotia in late Romano-British documents. Between the 5th and 13th centuries Gwynedd grew to include Ynys Môn and all of until about 1063, and later the High Middle Ages Principality of Gwynedd from 1063 until the 14th century. Gwynedd formed the nucleus for the Principality of Wales The Principality of Wales covered the lands ruled by the Prince of Wales directly, and was formally founded in 1216 at the Council of Aberdyfi, and later recognised by the 1218 Treaty of Worcester between Llywelyn the Great and the English Crown. The treaty gave substance to the political reality of 13th century Wales and England, both part of the founded in 1216.

The region is approximately made up of the following administrative areas For local government purposes, Wales is divided into 22 unitary authority areas, which are responsible for the provision of all local government services, including education, social work, environment and roads services. Below these in some areas there are community councils, which cover specific areas within a council area. The unitary authority:

Related Constituencies

North Wales was a European Parliament The European Parliament is the directly elected parliamentary institution of the European Union (EU). Together with the Council of the European Union (the Council), it forms the bicameral legislative branch of the EU and has been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world. The Parliament and Council form the highest constituency until 1999. Currently, there is an electoral region for the National Assembly for Wales The National Assembly for Wales is a devolved assembly with power to make legislation in Wales. The Assembly comprises 60 members, who are known as Assembly Members, or AMs (Welsh: Aelod y Cynulliad / Aelod Seneddol). Members are elected for four year terms under an additional members system, where forty AMs represent geographical constituencies with the name (used, in parallel with the smaller constituencies, to elect top-up members under the Additional Member System The Additional Member System is a branch of voting systems in which some representatives are elected from geographic constituencies and others are elected under proportional representation from a wider area, usually by party lists. Voters usually have two votes, one for the party and the second for the candidate in a constituency (sometimes these), which covers the North-East of Wales (specifically the entire area of the former pre-1996 county of Clwyd Clwyd is a preserved county of Wales, situated in the north-east, bordering England with Cheshire to its east, Shropshire to the south-east, and the Welsh counties of Gwynedd to its immediate west and Powys to the south. It additionally shares a maritime border with the metropolitan county of Merseyside along the River Dee. Between 1974 and 1996,) as well as the Northern-most coastal areas of north-western Wales; the rest of North Wales is covered by Mid and West Wales (National Assembly for Wales electoral region).

Geography

Llanddwyn Island's old lighthouse, with Snowdonia Snowdonia is a region in north Wales and a national park of 838 square miles (2,170 km2) in area. It was the first to be designated of the three National Parks in Wales, in 1951 in background

The area is mostly rural Rural areas are large and isolated areas of an open country , often with low population density. The terms "countryside" and "rural areas" are not synonyms: a "countryside" refers to rural areas that are open. A forest, wetlands, etc. with a low population density is not a countryside with many mountains A mountain is a large landform that stretches above the surrounding land in a limited area usually in the form of a peak. A mountain is generally steeper than a hill. The adjective montane is used to describe mountainous areas and things associated with them. The study of mountains is called Orography and valleys In geology, a valley or dale is a depression with predominant extent in one direction. A very deep river valley may be called a canyon or gorge. This, in combination with its coast (on the Irish Sea The Irish Sea also known as the Mann Sea or Manx Sea, separates the islands of Ireland and Great Britain. It is connected to the Atlantic Ocean in the south by St George's Channel, and in the north by the North Channel. Anglesey is the largest island within the Irish Sea, followed by the Isle of Man), has ensured that tourism Tourism is travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people who "travel to and stay in places outside their usual environment for more than twenty-four hours and not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes not related to the exercise of an activity is the principal industry. Farming Agriculture is the production of food and goods through farming. Agriculture was the key development that led to the rise of human civilization, with the husbandry of domesticated animals and plants creating food surpluses that enabled the development of more densely populated and stratified societies. The study of agriculture is known as, which was once the principal economic force in the area, is now much reduced in importance. The average income per capita of the local population is the lowest in the UK The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland[note 7] is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of the island of Ireland, and many small islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK with a land and much of the region has EU The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 member states which are located primarily in Europe. Committed to regional integration, the EU was established by the Treaty of Maastricht in 1993 upon the foundations of the European Communities. With over 500 million citizens, the EU combined generated an estimated 28% share (US$ 16.5 Objective 1 The Regional policy of the European Union is a policy with the stated aim of improving the economic well-being of certain regions in the EU. Around one third of the EU's budget is devoted to this policy, the aim of which has been stated to be to remove the disparities in wealth across the EU, restructure declining industrial areas and to diversify status.[3]

The eastern part of North Wales contains the most populous areas, with more than 300,000 people living in the areas around Wrexham Wrexham is a town in Wales. It is the administrative centre of the wider Wrexham County Borough, and the largest town in North Wales, located to the east of the region. It is situated between the Welsh mountains and the lower Dee Valley close to the border with Cheshire, England. As North Wales' largest town, it is the region's main commercial, and Deeside. Wrexham is North Wales' largest town A town is a human settlement larger than a village but smaller than a city. The size a settlement must be in order to be called a "town" varies considerably in different parts of the world, so that, for example, many American "small towns" seem to British people to be no more than villages, while many British "small towns&, with a population A population is all the organisms that both belong to the same species and live in the same geographical area. The area that is used to define the population is such that inter-breeding is possible between any pair within the area and more probable than cross-breeding with individuals from other areas. Normally breeding is substantially more of 68,000 in 2005. The majority of other settlements are along the coast, including some popular resort towns A resort town, sometimes called a resort city or resort destination, is a town or area where tourism or vacationing is a primary component of the local culture and economy. Most resort towns have one or more actual resorts in or nearby, although some places are considered resort towns merely because of their popularity among tourists, such as Rhyl Rhyl is a seaside resort town and community situated on the north east coast of Wales, in the county of Denbighshire (within the preserved county of Clwyd, and formerly the historic county of Flintshire), at the mouth of the River Clwyd (Welsh: Afon Clwyd). To the west is the suburb of Kinmel Bay, with the resort of Towyn further west, Prestatyn, Llandudno Llandudno is a seaside resort and town in Conwy County Borough, Wales. In the 2001 UK census it had a population of 20,090 including that of Penrhyn Bay and Penrhynside, which are within the Llandudno Community. The town is just off the North Wales Coast railway line which was opened as the Chester and Holyhead Railway in 1848, became part of the and Pwllheli. The A55 expressway The A55, also known as the North Wales Expressway, is a major road in Britain. Its entire length is a dual carriageway primary route, with the exception of the point where it crosses the Britannia Bridge over the Menai Strait. All junctions are grade separated except for two roundabouts — one east of Penmaenmawr and one in Llanfairfechan. The links these towns with the north of England The area now called England has been settled by people of various cultures for about 35,000 years, but it takes its name from the Angles, one of the Germanic tribes who settled during the 5th and 6th centuries. England became a unified state in AD 927, and since the Age of Discovery, which began during the 15th century, has had a significant and the port of Holyhead Holyhead (pronounced /ˈhɒlɪhɛd/ ; Welsh: Caergybi "the fort of Saint Cybi") is the largest town in the county of Anglesey in the north west of Wales for ferries to Ireland Ireland (pronounced [ˈaɾlənd],; Irish: Éire, pronounced [ˈeːɾʲə] ( listen); Ulster Scots: Airlann) is the third largest island in Europe and the twentieth largest island in the world. It lies to the northwest of continental Europe and is surrounded by hundreds of islands and islets. To the east of Ireland is Great Britain, separated from; few routes connect North Wales with South Wales South Wales is an area of Wales bordered by England and the Bristol Channel to the east and south, and Mid Wales and West Wales to the north and west. The most densely populated region in the south-west of the United Kingdom, it is home to around 2.1 million people and includes the capital city of Cardiff (population approximately 324,800), as. There are two cathedral A cathedral (French cathédrale from Lat. cathedra, "seat" from the Greek kathedra , seat, bench, from kata "down" + hedra seat, base, chair) is a Christian church that contains the seat of a bishop. It is a religious building for worship, specifically of a denomination with an episcopal hierarchy, such as the Roman Catholic, cities – Bangor and St. Asaph – and a number of mediaeval The Middle Ages is a period of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The period followed the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476, and preceded the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period in a three-period division of history: Classical, Medieval, and Modern. The term "Middle Ages" (medium aevum) was coined in castles (e.g., Criccieth, Dolbadarn, Harlech, Caernarfon Castle, Beaumaris, Conwy).

Geology

North Wales has a very diverse and complex geology with precambrian schists along the Menai Strait and the great Cambrian dome behind Harlech and underlying much of western Snowdonia. In the Ordovician period much volcanism deposited a range of minerals and rocks over the north western parts of Gwynedd whilst to the east of the River Conwy lies a large area of upland rolling hills underlain by the Silurian mud-stones and grits comprising the Denbigh and Migneint moors. To the east, around Llangollen,to the north on Halkyn mountain and the Great Orme and in eastern Anglesey are deep beds of limestone from which metals have been mines since pre-Roman times. Added to all this are the complexities posed by Parys Mountain and the outcrops of unusual minerals such as Jasper and Mona Marble which make the area of special interest to geologists.

Language

North Wales has a distinct regional identity. Its dialect of the Welsh language differs from that of other regions such as South Wales in some ways; for example llefrith is used in most of the North instead of llaeth for "milk"; a simple sentence such as go upstairs now might be Dos i fyny'r grisiau rwan in North Wales, where it might be Cer lan y stâr nawr in South Wales. Colloquially, a person from North Wales (especially one who speaks with this dialect or accent) is known as a North Walian, or a Gog (from the Welsh gogledd, meaning "north").

Local media

Sport

Football

The badge of Wrexham FC

Wrexham F.C. play in the English football pyramid. Having been a member of the Football League for over 80 years, in 2008 they were relegated into the Conference National for the first time in their existence. They remain the highest ranked team in the region, and play at the Racecourse Ground in Wrexham and train at Colliers Park, Gresford.

There are a number of teams playing within the semi-professional domestic leagues the Welsh Premier League and the Cymru Alliance.

Rugby League

Wales is represented in the European Super League by Crusaders Rugby League, they re-located to Wrexham for the 2010 season from south Wales. They play at the Racecourse Ground and train at Stansty Park both in Wrexham.

Rugby Union

In September 2008 it was announced by the Welsh Rugby Union that a development team based in North Wales would be created, with a long term goal of becoming the fifth Welsh Region in the Celtic League.[4] It was envisaged that this would both help the growth of the game in the area, and provide a larger pool of players for the Welsh national team to be selected from.[5][6]

Attractions

In 2000, The Wales Tourist Board tourist identified the top 10 most visited attractions in the region.[7] They included:

See also

References

  1. ^ The Kings and Princes of Wales, http://www.britannia.com/wales/fam1.html
  2. ^ Beaumaris Castle, Anglesey, A World Heritage Site, http://www.anglesey-today.com/beaumaris-castle.html
  3. ^ , http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/atlas/united_kingdom/ukl1_en.htm
  4. ^ "WRU plan for northern development team". The Independent. 9 September 2008. http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/rugby/rugby-union/international/wru-plan-for-northern-development-team-923786.html.
  5. ^ http://www.scrum.com/39_55930.php
  6. ^ Crump, Eryl; Rob Griffiths (September 9, 2008). "Strongest hint yet that North Wales will be fifth rugby region". Daily Post. http://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/2008/09/09/a-step-closer-to-joining-rugby-s-elite-55578-21705877/.
  7. ^ The top 10 attractions in North Wales, http://icnorthwales.icnetwork.co.uk/holidays/topten/

External links

Categories: Regions of Wales | Subdivisions of Wales

 

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