Swansea

Swansea is a city in south Wales, situated on the coast, immediately to the east of the Gower[?] peninsula. Swansea is Wales's second city, a centre of nationalist sympathies, and conducted a bitter but unsuccessful battle with Cardiff to be home to the National Assembly for Wales.

Swansea grew during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, becoming a centre of heavy industry, but did not enjoy the same degree of immigration as Cardiff and the eastern valleys. Consequently, it retains close links with agriculture and rural life, and a healthy proportion of the population are Welsh speakers. At the 1991 census, the population of Swansea was about 177,000.

Swansea is a seaside town, in a region popular with holidaymakers from all over Britain. It is also an industrial and commercial centre, with a Roman Catholic cathedral and the ruins of a castle, and is home to a college of the University of Wales. The poet Dylan Thomas spent his first 20 years in the town, at 5 Cwmdonkin Drive. A memorial to him is nearby in Cwmdonkin Park.

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Swansea is also a town in the State of Massachusetts in the United States of America: see Swansea, Massachusetts.

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