Official capital of Wales since only
1955 (hence the annoyingly
ubiquitous "Europe's Youngest
Capital" slogan), the buoyant
city of
CARDIFF (Caerdydd)
has swiftly grown into its new
status. A number of progressive
developments, not least the new,
sixty-member Welsh National
Assembly, are giving the city the
feel of an international capital, if
not always a very Welsh one:
compared with Swansea, Cardiff is
very anglicized - you'll rarely hear
Welsh on the city's streets.
The second Marquis of Bute built
Cardiff's first dock in 1839,
opening others in swift succession.
The Butes, who owned massive swathes
of the rapidly industrializing South
Wales valleys, insisted that all
coal and iron exports use the family
docks in Cardiff, and it became one
of the busiest ports in the world.
In the hundred years up to the turn
of the twentieth century, Cardiff's
population had soared from almost
nothing to 170,000, and the spacious
and ambitious new civic centre in
Cathays Park was well under way. The
twentieth century saw varying
fortunes: the dock trade slumped in
the 1930s and the city suffered
heavy bombing in World War II, but
with the creation of Cardiff as
capital in 1955, optimism and
confidence in the city have
blossomed. Many large governmental
and media institutions have moved
here from London, and the
development of the dock areas around
the new Assembly building to be
built in Cardiff Bay has given a
largely positive boost to the
cityscape.
The City
Cardiff's sights are clustered
around fairly small, distinct
districts. The compact commercial
centre is bounded by the River Taff
, which flows past the tremendous
new Millennium Stadium , inaugurated
for the 1999 Rugby World Cup....
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