Wales

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Welsh Preserved Counties. Click on any blue name for the article about the county. Note that the boundary between Gwynedd and Clwyd differs from the pre-1996 county boundary.
Wales (Welsh: Cymru) is one of the constituent countries of the United Kingdom, and sometimes referred to as a Principality, although the Welsh Assembly Government say this is not correct.[1]

The Anglo-Saxon invasions that led the the emergence of England did not penetrate into Wales, which therefore remained independent, different parts being ruled by different kings (including Maelgwn, King of Gwynedd) and princes.

King Edward I, having conquered Wales, is said to have offered the people of Wales a prince who spoke no English, and fulfilled this promise by presenting to them at Caernarfon his son, the future Edward II, who was still a baby. Since then the title "Prince of Wales" has been regularly granted to the eldest son of the monarch.

For most purposes, England and Wales have been treated as a single unit in legislation.

Develution for Wales was rejected in a referendum in 1979 but approved in a second referendum in 1997. This led to the Government of Wales Act 1998, steered through Parliament by Welsh Secretary Ron Davies. As a result of the Act, Wales now has its own Assembly, although its powers are less than those of the Scottish Parliament.

Local government

Historically Wales was divided into a number of counties and county boroughs. In 1972 these were all abolished and replaced with a system of eight new counties, each of which was divided into a number of districts.

In 1996 the counties were abolished for administrative purposes, and the districts reorganised to form 22 areas, equivalent to English unitary authorities. However the eight counties were retained for ceremonial purposes, and are now referred to as "preserved counties" (see map opposite).

The current local government areas, variously designated as counties, county boroughs, or cities, are as follows: {{columns-list|3|

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Police

There are four police forces in Wales, each of them covering one or more of the preserved counties.

See Police for a map of the police areas.

In 2006 the Government proposed to merge the four forces to create a single force for Wales (as is now to be done for Scotland) but this proposal, together with similar proposals for the English regions, was unpopular and soon abandoned.

External links

The LGBT Excellence Centre has a clickable Heritage Map of Wales with links to people and events in each of the 22 local government areas: http://lgbtec.org.uk/heritage-map

References

  1. http://www.wales.com/en/content/cms/faqs/faqs.aspx#Question%2011