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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Wales
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(land area 20,636sq.km/7968sq.m, population 2.8 million in 1991) The western projection of *Great Britain, bounded by the Bristol Channel to the south and the Irish Sea to the north. Its eastern boundary was effectively defined by *Offa's Dyke, the line to which the Anglo-Saxons, moving west, had pushed the ancient Britons by the 8C. Wales remains, therefore, the part of the United Kingdom with the strongest Celtic character and the only one in which a Celtic language, *Welsh, is still spoken as a first language by many people.
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Wales became a political entity under *Llywelyn ab Iorwerth in the early 13C, but Welsh independence came to an end later in that century with the campaigns of *Edward I. The title of Prince of *Wales was thereafter reserved for the heir to the English throne, though it was not till 1536 that Wales was made formally a part of the kingdom. By then, under the *Tudors, the dynasty was itself in origin Welsh. *Cardiff became in 1955 the official capital of Wales.
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