Welsh

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Wales (in Welsh, Cymru Acerca de este sonido[^K. ] in English, Wales Acerca de este sonido[шwe strung] ), it is a constituent nation of the United Kingdom. It is located on a peninsula west of the island of Great Britain, where it borders to the east with England and the west with the seas of Ireland and the Atlantic Ocean Celtic. It has a total population of three million people and is a bilingual country whose official languages are Welsh and English.

It is one of the Celtic nations and has its own cultural identity that was shaped after the withdrawal of the Romans from Britain. Edward I's defeat of Llewelyn in the 18th century XIII concluded the Anglo-Norman conquest of Wales and marked the beginning of centuries of English occupation. The territory was annexed to England in 1284 and later by the 1536 Act of Union, creating the legal entity today known as England and Wales. In the 19th century a local polity developed. In 1955 Cardiff was elected capital and in 1999 the National Assembly for Wales was created, which deals with internal affairs. Its head of government is the chief minister (First Minister).

The capital and largest city is Cardiff (Welsh: Caerdydd), with a population of 354,000. For a time it was the world's main coal port and, for some years before World War I, was busier than London or Liverpool. Two-thirds of the population live in South Wales, with another concentration in the western North Wales. Since the 19th century the country has developed a reputation as a folkloric place, due in part to the revival of the eisteddfod. After London, Cardiff is the largest communications center in the United Kingdom.

In 1216 Llywelyn the Great founded the Principality of Wales. In the early 15th century, that is, one hundred years after the English conquest, Owain Glyndwr briefly restored independence by defining the character country modern.

Since the reign of Edward I of England, the British monarch has been granting the title of Prince of Wales to his heir to the throne.

Etymology

The English name of Wales, «Wales», comes from the Anglo-Saxon «Walas» or «Wealas» (the country of the welsh, 'foreigners'), probably from the Germanic root *walhaz, meaning "non-Germanic foreigner". The native name, "Cymru", was adapted under the form "Cambria" in poetic English language.

History

Caerphilly Castle. This castle was built between 1268-1271 by Gilbert de Clare, which caused a dispute between Llywelyn the Last King and the English crown, one of the reasons that led to the wars of 1277 and 1282 and at the end of the independence of Wales.

The history of Wales begins with the arrival of human beings in the region thousands of years ago. The Neanderthals lived in what is today Wales (or Cymru in Welsh), do at least 230 000 yearswhile the Homo sapiens it came about 31000 a. C. However, the stable settlements of modern humans date back to the end of the last glacier around 9000 a. C., and Wales has many remains of the Mesolytic, the Neolithic (mainly dolmens and cromlechs) and the Bronze Age. During the Iron Age, the region, like all Britain south of the Firth of Forth, was dominated by the britons and the briton language.

The written history of Wales begins with the arrival of the Romans, who began their conquest in the year 43 A.D., and campaigned for the first time in what is now the northeast of Wales against the deceanglos. The British tribes of the pre-Roman era—deceanglos, ordovicos, cornovii, démetas and siluros—occupied the present territory of Wales and also parts of England and South Scotland, in what would be organized as the Roman province of Britannia. The Romans got total control of Wales with the defeat of the silhouettes and finally of the ordoviks in 79 AD and left Britain in the centuryVopening the door to the Anglo-Saxon invasion.

Several small kingdoms were formed in the present Wales in the post-Roman Britannia period, such as Gwynedd, Powys, Deheubarth, Glywysing and Gwent, while the Britons became Christianity. From then on, the British language and culture began to divide, and several different groups were formed. The Welsh were the largest of these groups, and generally performed independently of the other surviving British-speaking peoples after the centuryXI. During the high-medieval period the territory of Wales continued to be divided into small kingdoms, the most powerful ruler being the kingdom of Gwynedd, which was normally recognized as the king of the britons (later) Tywysog Cymru: Leader or Prince of Wales). Some of those rulers were able to expand their control over other Welsh territories and west of England and with the passage of time their centralizing influence spread. In the middle of the centuryXI Gruffyd ap Llywelyn came to control all the kingdoms of Wales and some areas of England for a brief period, but no ruler could unify Wales for a long time. The High Middle Ages in Wales was characterized by the internal struggles and the external pressure of the English kingdoms, first as Mercia, then against the unified kingdom of England. and then against the Norman conquerors, who arrived at the borders of Wales in 1067. The war against the invaders continued for more than two centuries until the death of the Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, the Last King in 1282, which led to the conquest of the Principality of Wales by King Edward I of England and the annexation of Wales to the kingdom of England; then the apparent heir of the English monarch will bear the title of "Prince of Wales". The gales launched several revolts against English domination, the last significant being directed by Owain Glyndsr at the beginning of the centuryXVwho controlled Wales for a few years before the English crown restored its authority. During the centuryXVI Welsh legislation was progressively amended to incorporate executive structures into England. Henry VIII, himself of Welsh origin as a grandson of Owen Tudor, approved the Laws in the Wales Acts with the aim of fully incorporating Wales into the Kingdom of England. Under the authority of England, Wales became part of the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707 and then in the UK in 1801. However, despite the English assimilation, the gales retained their language and culture. The publication of the extremely significant first full translation of the Bible in Welsh by William Morgan in 1588 greatly helped the position of Welsh as a literary language.

The centuryXVIII He saw the beginning of two changes that would greatly affect Wales, the Welsh Methodist rebirth—which led the country to become increasingly inconformist with religion—and the Industrial Revolution. During the rise of the British Empire, Southeast Wales, in particular, experienced in the centuryXIX rapid industrialization and rapid population growth as a result of the explosion of coal and iron industries. These areas were “anglified” due to the arrival of immigrants, highlighting the rural territories, where the traditional Welsh culture was most strongly preserved. The area also experienced the influence of Methodist Christianity.

Wales played a full and voluntary role in World War I. The Labour Party replaced the Liberal Party as the dominant political force in the 1920s. Wales played an important role during World War II together with the rest of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Allies, and their cities were heavily bombed during the Nazi blitz. The Empire Industries in Wales declined in the centuryXX. to the end of the British Empire after World War II, while nationalist sentiment and interest in self-determination increased. The nationalist party Plaid Cymru, led by Gwynfor Evans, gained momentum from the 1960s and obtained for the first time representation in the parliament of the United Kingdom in 1966, making the “devolution” of the Galician parliamentary institutions its main political objective. In the 1979 referendum, he won the negative vote, but in 1997 in another referendum, the Galician voters approved by a narrow margin the return of government responsibility to a National Assembly of Wales, which met for the first time in Cardiff in 1999.

Government

The new seat of Senedd, the Welsh Parliament.

The Welsh Government is the highest collegiate body that governs Welsh politics and administration, and is also the holder of the executive function and decentralized regulatory power of the United Kingdom. It was initially created in 1999 as the Executive Committee of the National Assembly for Wales. Since 2006 it has been an independent executive body responsible to the Welsh Parliament.

Territorial organization

Unitary authorities created in 1996.

The socio-historical divisions of this constituent country of the United Kingdom are North Wales, Mid Wales, South Wales and South West Wales.

The thirteen historic counties of Wales, existing between 1889 and 1974, were Monmouthshire, Glamorgan, Carmarthenshire, Pembrokeshire, Cardiganshire, Brecknockshire, Radnorshire, Montgomeryshire, Denbighshire, Flintshire, Merionethshire, Caernarvonshire and Anglesey.

In 1974 some of them merged, reducing their number to eight: Gwent, South Glamorgan, Mid Glamorgan, West Glamorgan, Dyfed, Powys, Gwynedd and Clwyd. Years later they lost all administrative function, but they were preserved as preserved counties.

In 1996, the country was divided into twenty-two unitary authorities: nine counties, three cities (Newport, Cardiff and Swansea) and ten county boroughs*: (1) Merthyr Tydfil*, (2) Caerphilly*, (3) Blaenau Gwent*, (4) Torfaen*, (5) Monmouthshire, (6) Newport, (7) Cardiff, (8) Vale of Glamorgan*, (9) Bridgend*, (10) Rhondda Cynon Taf*, (11) Neath Port Talbot*, (12) Swansea, (13) Carmarthenshire, (14) Ceredigion, (15) Powys, (16) Wrexham*, (17) Flintshire, (18) Denbighshire, (19) Conwy*, (20) Gwynedd, (21) Anglesey and (22) Pembrokeshire.

Other historic and current county towns include Aberaeron, Brecon, Caernarfon, Cardiff, Carmarthen, Denbigh, Dolgellau, Haverfordwest, Llandrindod Wells, Llangefni, Mold, Monmouth, Montgomery, Presteigne and Ruthin.

Wales' largest population centers are in the south, with the major urban centers of Cardiff, Swansea and Newport, as well as North Wales around Wrexham.

Geography

Map of Wales. Topography of more than 600 feet (182.88 m) in pink; national parks in green

Wales (in Welsh, Cymru) is a constituent nation that is part of the United Kingdom and is part of the island of Great Britain, a peninsula in the centre-west along with coastal islands, of which the largest is Anglesey. It borders with England east, with the sea of Ireland, north and west, with the channel of St. George, west, and with the canal of Bristol south. It has a total area of 20 641 km2 and has approximately 274 kmfrom north to south and at least 97 km wide. It has a number of islands on the high seas, being with much the largest of them Anglesey. The continental coast, including Anglesey, has a length of approximately 2704 km. In 2014, Wales had a population of approximately 3 092 000Cardiff is the capital and the largest and most populous city is located in the urbanized area of South East Wales.

Wales has a complex geological history that has left a country largely mountainous, particularly in the north and downtown. Its formations were developed during glaciers, particularly the wisconsiense. The highest peaks are in Snowdonia, including the Snowdon, which 1085m. n. m. is the highest in the country. The coastal plain is narrow in the north and west of the country, but wider in the south, where the Glamorgan valley has some of the best agricultural land. The exploitation of the South Wales coal field during the Industrial Revolution led to the development of an urban economy in the southern Wales valleys and the expansion of the port cities of Newport, Cardiff and Swansea for the export of coal. At that time, the smallest coal field in North Wales was also developed, but in other parts of the country, the landscape is rural and the communities are small, and the economy depends largely on agriculture and tourism. The climate is influenced by the proximity of the country to the Atlantic Ocean and the west winds that prevail; therefore it tends to be soft, cloudy, humid and windy.

Location of Rhosilli on the Gower peninsula.

The country has numerous watercourses, the most important being the Severn rivers (354 km), Wye (215 km), Dee (112 km), Towy (109 km), Usk (90 km), Teifi (84 km) and Taff (64 km). Among its lakes are the Tegid, the Trawsfynydd and the Vyrnwy, all with a surface superior to the 4 km2.

Wales has the national parks of Snowdonia, Brecon Beacons and Pembrokeshire coast, as well as four areas of outstanding Natural Beauty: Anglesey, the Clwydian mountain range, the Gower peninsula and the Wye valley. Much of the eastern and southern coast of the country is protected: the Gower peninsula, Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire, and Ceredigion are particularly wild. Gower, Carmarthenshire, Pembrokeshire and Cardigan Bay have clean and blue waters, with attractive beaches. However, they are also exposed to strong west winds brought by the Atlantic, causing many shipwrecks.

The current border between Wales and England was defined in the centuryXVIon the basis of feudal divisions. The limit also follows the layout of the wall of Offa.

Economy

Over the last 250 years, Wales has transitioned from a largely agricultural economy to an industrial one, and then to a post-industrial society. In the 1950s Wales's GDP was twice that of Ireland's, while that in the 2020s Ireland's economy was four times the size of Wales's. Since World War II, the service sector has provided the largest number of jobs, a characteristic of most advanced economies. In 2018, according to OECD and Eurostat data, Wales' gross domestic product (GDP) was £75 billion, an increase of 3.3% from 2017. GDP per capita was £23,866, an increase of 2.9% from 2017. Therefore, it is comparable to the GDP per capita of countries such as Italy, Spain, Slovenia or New Zealand. In the last three months of 2017, 72.7% of adults of working age were employed, compared to 75.2% in the United Kingdom. For the 2018 fiscal year- 19, the Welsh fiscal deficit comprises 19.4% of the estimated GDP of Wales.

In 2019, Wales was the fifth largest exporter of electricity globally, with 22.7 TWh. In 2021, the Welsh Government claimed that at least half of the energy generated comes from renewable sources, of which of which 2% came from 363 hydroelectric power projects.

Transportation

The M4 motorway, which links west London and south Wales, runs through Newport, Cardiff and Swansea. The Welsh section of the motorway, from the Second Severn Bridge to the Pont Abraham service area, is vested in the Welsh Government. The A55 route has a similar function on the North Wales coast, linking Holyhead and Bangor with Wrexham and Flintshire. It also has a connection to the North West of England, mainly Chester. The main north-south axis in Wales is the A470 road, which connects Cardiff with Llandudno. The Welsh Government manages the sections of the rail network that cross the territory, through the company Transport for Wales Rail. The Cardiff region has its own commuter network. The Beeching scheme in the 1960s meant that much of the remaining network was oriented towards the west, as it was intended to have a connection with ports on the Irish Sea, the departure point for ferries. between north and south Wales they operate between the English cities of Chester and Hereford and the towns of Shrewsbury, Oswestry and Knighton. Trains in Wales run mainly diesel fuel, but the South Wales Main Line, part of the Great Western Railway, which runs from Paddington Station to Cardiff is undergoing electrification, although the project has suffered multiple delays and cost overruns.

Cardiff Airport is the international airport for Wales. It has multiple destinations to Europe, Africa and North America. It is located 19 km southwest of central Cardiff, in the Vale of Glamorgan. Regional flights between Anglesey and Cardiff have been operated since 2017 by Eastern Airways. There are also flights to the north of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Wales has four ports with commercial ferry services. There are routes to Ireland from Holyhead, Pembroke Dock and Fishguard. The Swansea to Cork service was canceled in 2006, it resumed operation in March 2010, while it was withdrawn again in 2012.

Education

Wales has its own education system. Formal education before the 18th century was received only by the elite. The first grammar schools in Wales were founded in the towns of Ruthin, Brecon and Cowbridge. Griffith Jones started one of the first systems of teaching, introducing itinerant schools in the 1730s. of the country to read. In the 19th century, with a state more involved in education, Wales was forced to implement a primarily English education system, although the country was nonconformist, Welsh-speaking, and demographically uneven due to population expansion in the south. In some schools, to ensure that Welsh children spoke English, punishments such as Welsh Not were used; This caused resentment, although the extent of its use is difficult to estimate. State and local governments encouraged instruction in English. Materials such as Brad and Llyfrau Gleision were used, which were seen as more academic and useful for children.

Aberystwyth University opened in 1872. Cardiff and Bangor followed, and the three institutions merged in 1893 to form the University of Wales. The Welsh Education Act of 1889 created 95 secondary schools. The Welsh Department to Regulate Education was enacted in 1907, allowing Wales to gain certain powers. There has been a revival of Welsh schools in the second half of the century XX, as there have been changes in nursery and primary education that favored language teaching. Welsh is a compulsory language in all schools, ages 5 to 16 years of age. Although there have never been exclusively Welsh-language schools, secondary and tertiary education has seen a boom in the use of the language, and since 2011 has been supported by Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol (National Welsh College) as a delocalized federal institution. In the 2018–2019 school year, there were 1,494 schools in Wales. They had a total of 468,398 pupils, and 23,593 full-time teachers.

Health

Welsh University Hospital, located in Cardiff.

The healthcare system is public, which is provided by NHS Wales/GIG Cymru. Originally, this NHS structure was common to that of England, by the National Health Act of 1946, although it won certain powers in 1969, with the Secretary of State for Wales. The power became exclusively Welsh with the devolution of the assembly in 1999, so the competence falls to the Ministry of Health and Social Services. Historically, Wales had smaller hospitals, which were conceived as voluntary institutions. As newer, more expensive techniques appeared, which improved diagnosis and treatment, clinical work has concentrated in newer and larger district hospitals. As of 2006, there were seventeen hospital districts in Wales. NHS Wales has 80,000 staff, making it the largest employer in Wales. A health survey conducted in Wales in 2009 found 51% of adults to be in good or excellent health, while 21% described their health as a acceptable or poor. The survey found that 27% of Welsh adults had chronic conditions such as arthritis, asthma, diabetes or heart problems. The 2018 Wales national survey, which had a section on health habits, recorded 19% of adult smokers, 18% with high alcohol consumption, while 53% reached the recommended physical activity per week, which was 150 minutes.

Demographics

The bay of Swansea, the second most populous city of Wales after Cardiff.

The population of Wales doubled from 587,000 in 1801 to 1,163,000 in 1851. In 1911 it reached 2,421,000. Most of the increase was due to the rise of coal mining, above all in the district of Glamorganshire, which went from 71,000 inhabitants in 1801 to 232,000 in 1851 and 1,122,000 in 1911. Population growth is also due to the demographic transition, which was seen in industrialized countries during the Industrial Revolution, as the death rate dropped and the birth rate remained stable. In addition, the large-scale positive migration flow contributed to the large population increase in Wales. The English were the largest group, although there were also large numbers of Irish and other ethnic groups, including Italians, who migrated to South Wales. Wales also received immigrants from various parts of the Commonwealth. in the 20th century, mainly from the Afro-Caribbean and Asian communities in urban centers. The vast majority consider themselves Welsh.

The population remained at 2.74 million in 1972, since the demographic movement was not that significant. However, in the early 1980s, the population fell due to increased emigration. Since then, migration flows have been mainly within Wales, which has been the main cause of population growth. The resident population of Wales in 2011 has increased by 5 per cent from 2001 to 3 Population 063,456, of whom 1,504,228 are male and 1,559,228 are female, according to the 2011 census results. The population of Wales comprised 4.8% of the UK total in 2011. Wales has six cities. In addition to Cardiff, Newport and Swansea, the towns of Bangor, St Asaph and Saint David's have city status in the United Kingdom.

Languages

Proportion of inhabitants who could speak Welsh, according to the 2011 census.

The Welsh language belongs to the Indo-European family of languages, specifically to the Celtic languages. The closest languages are Cornish and Breton. Most linguists consider that the Celtic languages arrived in Britain around 600 BC. The Brittonic languages ceased to be spoken in England and were replaced by English, which arrived in Wales at the end of the 8th century due to the defeat of the Kingdom of Powys. Bible translations into Welsh and the Protestant Reformation, which allowed the use of vernacular languages in religious services, thereby allowing the language to survive after the abandonment of their use in the elites, since they began to spread English in the XV and XVI. Subsequently, Welsh Language Acts were enacted in 1942, 1967, 1993 and 2011, improving language protection. Since the 1990s 1960s, traffic signs are primarily bilingual. Various public and private organizations have embraced bilingualism to some degree, and d Since 2011 it has had official language status. English is the language spoken by the majority of Welsh people, making it the official language. Code switching is common in Wales, although it is not recognized by professional linguists.

Welsh English is the dialect present in half the country. It has been influenced by Welsh grammar and includes words derived from Welsh. According to historian John Davies, Welsh English "has been the subject of the greatest prejudice that the Welsh have ever suffered". North and West Wales remain the areas where Welsh remains the majority language in the majority of the population, while English is the second language. The 2011 census showed that 562,016 people, 19 percent of the Welsh population, were able to speak Welsh, down from 20.8 percent shown in the 2001 census. Although monolingualism in children continues, it is a phenomenon that no longer occurs in Wales.

Religion

CenturyXII church of Llangwyfan, Anglesey

The largest religion in Wales is Christianity, with 57.6% of the population calling themselves Christian at the 2011 census. The church in Wales numbers 56,000 parishioners who regularly participate in religious services. It is a province of the Anglican communion, and formed part of the Church of England until 1920, under a law enacted in 1914. The first sign of Anglican nonconformity in Wales was given at Llanvaches in 1638, by William Wroth. The Presbyterian Church in Wales grew out of the revival of Methodism in the 18th century century, splitting from the Church of England in 1811. The second largest faith in Wales is Catholicism, which numbers 43,000 people. The 2011 census had 32.1% of people reporting no religion, while 7.6% did not respond. to the question.

The patron saint of Wales is David of Wales (Dewi Sant), celebrated on Saint David's Day (Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Sant) on March 1. In 1904, a religious revival promoted by the evangelism of Evan Roberts led to large numbers of people converting to the non-Anglican Christianity, even entire communities. Evan Roberts' style of sermons became the basis for new religious movements such as Pentecostalism and the Apostolic Church.

Non-Christian religions are small in Wales, making up only 2.7% of the population. Islam is the largest, with 24,000 people according to the 2011 census, making up 0.8% of the population There are also Hindu and Sikh communities, mainly in South Wales cities such as Newport, Cardiff and Swansea, while the largest concentration of Buddhists is in the rural western county of Ceredigion. Judaism was the first non-Christian denomination that settled in Wales since the Roman Empire, although in 2001 there were only 2,000, and in 2019 there were only 1,000.

Culture

The National Wales Library, Aberystwyth.

Wales has a distinctive culture that includes its own language, customs, holidays and music. Its main symbol is the red Welsh dragon. Other national emblems are the leek and the daffodil. The Welsh words for both plants are very similar, which leads to multiple confusions.

Literature

Welsh literature has been written in Welsh, Latin and English. Its origins date back to the Middle Ages, around the VI century. The first work worth mentioning is the Historia Brittonum, in whose pages figures from the epic tradition such as Taliesin and Aneirin, respectively authors of Llyfr Taliesin and And Gododdin.

Page And Gododdin, poem of the centuryXIV.

At the beginning of the XIV century the cywydd metrical form was developed, which would become the most important form of poetry traditional welsh The main work of the incipient tradition is that of Geoffrey of Monmouth, who in his Historia Regum Britanniae reviews the lives of the kings of the Britons, beginning with the Trojans and ending with the capture of Britain by of the Anglo-Saxons in the VII century. The work was composed in the 1130s.

Among Welsh writers in Latin, the historian Giraldus Cambrensis stands out. For its part, the first book written entirely in Welsh is the Carmarthen Black Book, in the 1250s, while the Mabinogion is the most important collection of medieval stories. local.

Dylan Thomas, Welsh poet of the first half of the centuryXX..

In 1588, William Morgan translated and published the Bible in Welsh, furthering the spread of both the Welsh language and literature. During the 16th and 17th centuries" The first manifestations of an Anglo-Welsh literature, in English, can also be seen in the works of Henry Vaughan and George Herbert.

In the 18th century the activities of personalities such as the freemason and historian Iolo Morganwg contributed to the recovery of the Eisteddfod. From this period it is worth mentioning Visions of the Sleeping Bard (Gweledigaetheu and Bardd Cwsc) by Ellis Wynne, a classic work of Welsh-language literature published in 1703.

Late 19th century and early XX, literature began to reflect the political use of the language, in which the leader of Welsh nationalism, Saunders Lewis, and the writer Kate Roberts stood out.

Industrialization of South Wales from the 19th century onwards caused a wave of English-speaking immigration to the area, which contributed to the emergence of an Anglo-Welsh literature. Notable authors of this strand of Welsh literature include Arthur Machen, Lewis Jones, Richard Llewellyn and Dylan Thomas, author of Under Milkwood.

Museums and Libraries

The National Museum of Wales was founded by Royal Charter in 1907 and is now a Welsh Government sponsored body. The National Museum is made up of seven sites across the country, including the National Museum and Gallery Cardiff, St Fagans National History Museum and Big Pit national coal museum. Aberystwyth is home to the National Library of Wales, which houses some of the most important collections in Wales, including the John William Library and the Shirburn Castle collection. In addition to its print collection, the library holds important collections of Welsh art including portraits and photographs, ephemera such as postcards, posters and Official Service maps.

Architecture

Main building of the University of Cardiff.

Wales is rich in architecture. In prehistoric times its inhabitants built cromlechs, such as those at Pentre Ifan, Bryn Celli Ddu and Parc Cwm long cairn. In April 2001, the attractions of the National Museum were granted free admission by the Assembly, and thanks to this action, the number of visitors to the sites increased during 2001-2002 by 87.8% to 1,430,428.

Among its buildings, the medieval castles of Beaumaris, Bodelwyddan, Bodelwyddan, Cardiff, Coch, Caernarfon, Conwy, Dinefwr, Harlech, Pembroke, Rojo and Powis stand out.

Among its religious temples are the Anglican cathedrals of Bangor, Brecon, Llandaff, Newport, Saint David and Saint Asaph, as well as the Catholic ones of Wrexham and Metropolitan Cardiff.

Other buildings of value in the capital are the National Museum and Gallery, the University, the City Hall, the Millennium and Arms Park stadiums, the old and new buildings of the National Assembly for Wales, the performing arts center Millennium Center of Wales, the concert hall St.David's Hall, or the modern Central Library, inaugurated in March 2009.

Sports

The main sports in Wales are rugby union and soccer. As a constituent nation of the United Kingdom, it is represented by its national team in major sporting events such as the Soccer World Cup with the Wales soccer team; and Rugby, or the Commonwealth Games. Wales also has national federations for both sports: the Welsh Rugby Union and the Football Association of Wales.

As in New Zealand, rugby union is an element of national identity, except in North Wales, where soccer is the main sport. The Wales rugby team participates annually in the Six Nations Tournament. It has played in all the World Cups and organized the tournament in 1999 and 2015. The regional teams of Wales make up the Celtic Rugby League along with teams from Ireland and Scotland and also participate in the Heineken Cup.

The Football Association of Wales, founded in 1876, runs professional clubs at the national level. The Welsh Cup has been played since 1877 and the Welsh Premier League since 1992. However, Cardiff City F.C., Swansea City AFC and other Welsh teams play in the English league and other competitions, so they have been excluded from the tournaments. Welsh since 1995.

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