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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Two rugby players in red shirts and white shorts lift a team-mate into the air to catch a ball, while others dressed in white stretch to intervene.
The Wales national rugby union team represent Wales in international rugby union tournaments. They compete annually in the Six Nations Championship with England, France, Ireland, Italy and Scotland. The International Rugby Board (IRB) regards Wales as a Tier One rugby nation, and ranks them seventh in the world as of 28 February 2011. Wales play in red jerseys embroidered with the Prince of Wales's feathers. Their current home ground is the Millennium Stadium, completed in 1999 to replace the National Stadium at Cardiff Arms Park. Ten former Welsh players have been inducted into the International Rugby Hall of Fame, and two of the ten have been inducted into the IRB Hall of Fame.

The governing body, the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU), was established in 1881, the same year that Wales played their first international against England. Welsh rugby struggled between the first and second World Wars, but experienced a second 'golden age' between 1969 and 1980 when they won eight Five Nations Championships (including 3 shared wins). They played in the inaugural Rugby World Cup in 1987 where they achieved their best ever result of third. Wales hosted the 1999 World Cup and, won their first Six Nations Grand Slam in 2005, which was followed by a second in 2008. Their 2005 Grand Slam is notable for being the first ever team to gain the accolade playing most matches away from home.

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The ruins of an abbey with the abbey church in the centre ground and a wooded hill behind
Tintern Abbey
Credit: Saffron Blaze

Tintern Abbey is a former Cistercian abbey, now in ruins, situated in the village of Tintern in Monmouthshire, on the Welsh bank of the River Wye. Founded in 1131, it was only the second Cistercian foundation in Britain and the first in Wales. It inspired William Wordsworth's poem "Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey", Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "Tears, Idle Tears", Allen Ginsberg's "Wales Visitation" and more than one painting by J. M. W. Turner.

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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.

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A white page with black handwritten insular script: it begins with an enlarged initial 'D' (in "Domino meo venerabili..."), and half-way down the page it is interrupted by a large "Anno Domincæ", in outline script.
Asser (d. 908/909) was a Welsh monk from St. David's, Dyfed, who became Bishop of Sherborne in the 890s. In about 885 he was asked by Alfred the Great to leave St. David's and join the circle of learned men which Alfred was recruiting for his court. After spending a year at Caerwent due to an illness, he accepted. In 893 Asser wrote a biography of Alfred, called the Life of King Alfred. The manuscript survived to modern times in only one copy, which was part of the Cotton library. That copy was destroyed in a fire in 1731, but transcriptions that had been made earlier, allied with material from Asser's work that was included by other early writers, have enabled the work to be reconstructed. The biography is now the main source of information about Alfred's life, and provides far more information about Alfred than is known about any other early English ruler. Asser also assisted Alfred in his translation of Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care, and possibly with other works.

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Welsh national identity · English rule in Wales · Military history of Wales · Welsh pop and rock music · Wales in the World Wars · Carmarthen Bay · Clwydian Range · Glyn Daniel · List of places in Anglesey · List of places in Ceredigion · List of places in Gwynedd · List of places in Monmouthshire · List of places in Pembrokeshire · List of places in Powys · Pembroke River · River Cothi · River Dwyryd · River Ebbw · River Honddu · River Ithon · River Llynfi · River Mawddach · River Mynach · River Neath · River Ogwen · River Rheidol · River Taff · River Vyrnwy · River Ystwyth  · Aberfan Cemetery · East Glamorgan General Hospital · Welsh traditional music · River Gyffin Other pages that need expansion: Wales stubs

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cy:Capel Seion, Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant (Capel Seion, Llanrhaeadr ym Mochnant), Grade II* listed building · cy:Trefeurig (Trefeurig)

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