Talk:South Wales

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I made some pretty extensive changes, based primarily on the couple of years that I lived in England and Swansea, Wales. I think that it is important to note the connection between South Wales and the M4, as well as the Anglican nature of South Wales as compared with the rest of Wales. Jdfoote 06:42, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Before I go adding my two pence, I'm surprised to see 'South Wales' limited to SE Wales. When I was living in Caerfyrddin, I was always under the impression Cymru De was pretty much everything south of, say, Aberystwyth (give or take a bit). Anything more specific was referred to by county (or heritage county, or whatever the blazes they are nowadays). Corgi 22:41, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I would call the region described here south-east Wales. Rhion 09:29, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Agree. There's no real defined South Wales IMO. For one thing the view of NESW Wales changes depending on where you are, which makes it difficult. I'd call Pembrokshire, for example, part of West Wales, but think a lot of people over there think of it as South Wales. I'd propose that the entry should be considerably shortened and reflect the ill-defined nature of South Wales. There's already an entry on the South Wales Valleys, which some of the material could be migrated to. --Vjam 13:01, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Do you mean 'Anglicized' nature of south Wales as opposed to 'Anglican', which refers to religion? South Wales is (or was) as non-conformist as other areas of Wales, and you'll see more chapels in the Valley areas than most other places. The map does seem to refer to SE Wales, though i agree that Sir Gar and Sir Benfro are West Wales, and most inhabitants identify as both South Walian and West Walian. With regard to the Gymraeg, which this article is not about, us speakers would regard De Gymru as being to the south of Aberystwyth, due to the greater intelligibility of dialect with regards to the North.

The boundary as regards to south western Powys could be scrutinised - the ex-Coal mining areas of the Upper Swansea Valley have much in common with the rest of South Wales, while also sharing much with the other mainly Welsh speaking coal mining areas of the Gwendraeth Valleys and around Ammanford. GarethRhys 16:34, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Breconshire

Why have I changed Breconshire to Powys ? For the very simple reason that Wikipedia is about providing information to everyone and anuone and for the very great majority of the world the divisions of Wales are the current administrative boundaries and not the old ceremonial counties. Can you please provide a justification as to why I should promote counties that have no meaning to most people living in 2006 ? The ceremonial counties aren't even on any modern maps ! Velela 09:41, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I removed the qualification altogether as it is completely unnecessary. The article itself was describing what many people think the divisions of Wales really are - i.e. north Wales, south Wales, west Wales, &c. Do you honestly believe that people looking for an article on Rhymney would use the qualification that it is "in Caerphilly"? Of course they wouldn't, they'd probably just say that it is in "South Wales". There are many overlapping geographies and it just so happens that the current administrative geogrpahy is one of the worst. What sensible geographic system would have divisions that range in size from 5,196 km² to 111 km²? Some of which are named after towns, despite being vastly bigger, some are named after other well-known divisions but with a completely different area, e.g. Monmouthshire, Denbighshire. The administrative geography exists, but to use it as the only general-purpose geography is confusing to say the least. Owain (talk) 10:23, 31 May 2006 (UTC)