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West Wales |
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This article or section contains weasel words, vague phrasing that often accompanies biased or unverifiable information. Such statements should be clarified or removed. (November 2008) |
West Wales (Welsh: Gorllewin Cymru) is the western area of Wales bordered by South Wales to the east and Mid Wales to the north.
The area is loosely-defined, but is generally considered to include Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion. Swansea and Neath Port Talbot were included in the former Welsh Development Agency and ELWa West Wales regions[1]. Since there is no formal boundary between West Wales and South Wales, it would be equally true that anywhere up to and including Swansea might also be considered to be in South Wales. There is widespread agreement that the land to the west of the Loughor bridge and the border of Swansea and Carmarthenshire is in West Wales. At this point, road signs change from English before Welsh to Welsh before English. This is because each local authority in Wales has its own policy on bilingual signage and crossing a council border can change the signage conventions and is not a significant factor in the distinction between South and West Wales.
The area includes the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park. Towns in the region include Llanelli, Carmarthen, Tenby, Pembroke, Fishguard, Milford Haven, Cardigan, Aberaeron and Haverfordwest.
The northern boundary of West Wales is equally vague. Many organisations have used the River Dovey as the boundary with everything north of the river being part of North Wales. Other cartographers place Aberystwyth and Machynlleth at the western edge of Mid Wales. Since these areas have no political, economic, cartographic or ethic significance but are simply used as shorthand in describing events and places in Wales, it is likely that exact boundaries are relatively unimportant.
The name West Wales was also applied to the Kingdom of Cornwall before the conquest by the Anglo-Saxons during the period of the Heptarchy. This is due to misunderstanding. The Anglo-Saxon word Waleas means foreigners, which gave its name to Wales - foreigners/foreign. This was also applied to Cornwall as "West Wales" meaning West foreigners, although, this is misunderstood as that Cornwall was part of Wales. In fact, Cornwall never belonged to Wales.
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