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The people of Wales are unevenly distributed in a largely concentric settlement pattern: sparsely populated uplands are at the core, surrounded by bands of gradually increasing population density that culminate on the coasts and the English border. The pattern largely reflects the country’s traditional agricultural regions and its more recent urban and industrial developments. Although the central heartland region has lost considerable population, it retains much of its traditional culture and serves as a hearth for the Welsh language.
Rural settlement
The Welsh tribal economy, of seminomadic pastoral origin, produced mainly dispersed isolated farmsteads, with only limited nucleation (clustering of buildings) on some of the larger tribal domains. Missionaries known as the Celtic saints established individual monastic or cell habitations in rural areas following the collapse of the Roman Empire, and some of their dwellings attracted additional settlers because of their favourable sites or positioning. The Anglo-Norman manorial system was introduced into Wales after the conquest of 1282, but nucleated villages became significant only in the eastern and southern peripheries of the country, where physical and political conditions favoured their development. As a result, large numbers of isolated, whitewashed stone cottages and farm buildings still dot the rural landscape, forming a strong underlying element within the Welsh social fabric.
Urban settlement
Some four-fifths of the Welsh population live in urban areas; two-thirds of the total reside in the South Wales industrial zone, and many others live in the northeast. Prior to the Norman Conquest there was scarcely any urban development in Wales, but the Normans introduced castle towns (walled towns) that still dominate the contemporary urban landscape—at least in number if not in size. These towns remain and serve commercial, administrative, and social functions; however, their physical appearance often betrays their military and colonial origins. Superimposed on this earlier urban pattern was that generated by the Industrial Revolution—notably in the south and northeast, where unplanned, overcrowded urban settlements sprang up in zones where coal deposits were being rapidly exploited. The coalfields of South Wales were developed in the 19th century as one of the premier mining regions of Britain, and such urban settlements as Rhondda, with tightly packed rows of terraced housing strung out along narrow valleys, are perhaps among the most widely known characteristics of Wales. The region declined markedly during the Great Depression of the 1930s and with the collapse of the coal and steel industries in the late 20th century. However, South Wales remains the most densely populated and industrialized region in Wales. It is divided into several essentially urban administrative areas, including Cardiff, Swansea, Newport, Port Talbot, Neath, Bridgend, Barry, and Caerphilly.
Developments in the 20th century included ferry ports (packet stations) for traffic to Ireland, resort towns in some of the coastal areas, and two designated “new towns”—Cwmbrân in the southeast and Newtown in the middle borderland—which were promoted in an attempt to stem depopulation. Aberystwyth, with its university and the National Library of Wales, is the largest town west of the central heartland region. The region preserves many essentially Welsh elements in its social life because of its somewhat isolated, west-facing location. The middle borderland region, traditionally agricultural, has diversified its economy in an attempt to stem long-standing trends of emigration and depopulation. Settlement in the region’s southern half is oriented toward the highly trafficked Severn estuary.
Demographic trends
The Industrial Revolution dramatically increased the Welsh population from around 500,000 people in the mid-18th century to some 2,600,000 by 1921. In the 1890s alone roughly 130,000 migrants were drawn into the coalfields of South Wales from England, Ireland, Spain, Italy, and elsewhere; many people from rural areas in Wales also migrated to industrial centres. Although new manufacturers and mines provided employment for many Welsh workers, others emigrated, particularly to the northeastern United States.
Heavy industry declined during the 20th century, and agriculture became increasingly commercialized and capital-intensive, producing further emigration from Wales, mainly of younger workers, and leaving behind a disproportionately aged population. In the late 20th century new industrial growth stemmed the population loss, except in South Wales and other coalfield regions. There is now a rough balance between inward and outward migration; however, many of the more recent arrivals have been seasonal vacationers or rural retreaters from metropolitan England, which has produced considerable tensions in traditionally Welsh-speaking areas where up to half the population was born outside Wales. In contrast, nonnatives account for less than one-tenth of the residents of some southern districts. Many African seamen were attracted to South Wales during the industrial boom of the late 19th century, but people of African ancestry now account for only a tiny fraction of Wales’s total population. Cardiff is home to one of the oldest black communities in Britain.