Local government in Wales

There are six cities in total in Wales: in addition to the three principal areas with city status (Cardiff, Swansea and Newport), the communities of Bangor, St Davids and St Asaph also have the status. City status is granted by letters patent.

• Bangor – time indeterminate
• Cardiff 1905
• Swansea 1969
• St Davids 1994
• Newport 2002
• St Asaph 2012

St Asaph, as the seat of a bishopric, was historically referred to as a city, and was described as such in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. The status was, however, not officially recognised for many years. When city status was restored to St Davids in 1994, St Asaph town council submitted a petition for the same purpose. The petition was refused as, unlike St Davids, there was no evidence of any charter or letters patent in the past conferring the status. Applications for city status in competitions in 2000 and 2002 were unsuccessful.[2] However, city status was finally granted to St Asaph in 2012 as part of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations:[3] St Asaph was selected "to recognise its wealth of history, its cultural contribution and its metropolitan status as a centre for technology, commerce and business".

There are 22 principal areas in Wales. They came into being on 1 April 1996 by virtue of the Local Government (Wales) Act 1994 (1994 c. 19). Eleven are named as counties, including the Cities and Counties of Cardiff and Swansea (marked *), and eleven are styled as county boroughs (marked †).[4] In 2002 Newport was granted city status, and the county borough is now styled as the "City of Newport".[5][6] Welsh language forms are given in parentheses, except where there is no English equivalent.

Locations of each council headquarters are indicated by yellow markers.

Blaenau Gwent † Bridgend (Pen-y-bont ar Ogwr) † Caerphilly (Caerffili) † Cardiff (Caerdydd) * Carmarthenshire (Sir Gaerfyrddin) Ceredigion Conwy † Denbighshire (Sir Ddinbych) Flintshire (Sir y Fflint) Gwynedd Isle of Anglesey (Ynys Môn) Merthyr Tydfil (Merthyr Tudful) † Monmouthshire (Sir Fynwy) Neath Port Talbot (Castell-nedd Port Talbot) † Newport (Casnewydd) * Pembrokeshire (Sir Benfro) Powys Rhondda Cynon Taf † Swansea (Abertawe) * Torfaen (Tor-faen) † Vale of Glamorgan (Bro Morgannwg) † Wrexham (Wrecsam) †

Areas are Counties, unless marked * (for Cities) or † (for County Boroughs). Welsh-language forms are given in parentheses, where they differ from the English.

The current names of certain unitary authority areas are different from those specified in the Local Government (Wales) Act 1994. The following changes took place, all with effect from 2 April 1996:[7]

• Conwy from Aberconwy and Colwyn
• Isle of Anglesey from Anglesey
• Gwynedd from Caernarfonshire and Merionethshire
• Ceredigion from Cardiganshire
• Neath Port Talbot from Neath and Port Talbot

Like councils throughout the UK, Welsh councils are made up of elected councillors. Exceptionally, because of political in-fighting and a history of poor performance, the executive functions of the Isle of Anglesey Council were temporarily taken over by commissioners appointed by the Welsh Government.[8] Elections planned for 2012 were delayed until 2013.[9]

Local government elections normally take place every four years, though the Wales Act 2017 prevented local government elections from taking place in the same year as elections to the National Assembly of Wales. Hence the Local Authorities (Change to the Year of Ordinary Elections (Wales) Order 2019 postponed the date of the May 2021 local elections to May 2022.[10]

For ceremonial purposes of Lieutenancy and Shrievalty, Wales is divided into eight preserved counties which are based on the counties created by the Local Government Act 1972 and used for local government and other purposes between 1974 and their abolition in 1996.

The historic counties of Wales are ancient subdivisions of Wales, used for various functions for several hundred years. Wales had no official counties until the 13th century. In the south east, Norman advancement led to the creation of marcher lordships, such as Glamorgan, which served as semi-autonomous administrative divisions, although these were not counties in the true sense as they lacked the formal structure. Some towns within these areas did, however, receive charters which outlined rights and duties in much the same way as a borough. Counties in the strict sense first appeared with the establishment of Cardiganshire and Carmarthenshire in the 1240s. In 1284 the Principality of Gwynedd was divided into three counties: Anglesey, Caernarvonshire and Merionethshire. This can be regarded as an arrangement imposed on Wales by the English during the last years of Prince Llywelyn II. Before the end of the century, Flintshire had also become a county, and thus nearly half the territory of Wales was under the rule of the English Crown. While the arrangement did not officially bring the marcher lordships in the South directly under the King's control, many such lordships were held by the King personally, although some remained under the semi-autonomous control of powerful local families. The formation of counties was completed under the Act of Union 1536, which created Pembrokeshire, Montgomeryshire, Denbighshire, Radnorshire, Glamorganshire, Brecknockshire and Monmouthshire, many from existing marcher lordships now recreated as counties proper.

These 13 counties were the main administrative subdivisions of Wales from 1536 until the implementation in 1974 of the Local Government Act 1972, although the definition and role of the smaller county boroughs within the counties during that period saw considerable change, as it did across the United Kingdom.

At the lowest level of administrative subdivision in Wales are the communities, into which each principal area is subdivided. They may have elected community councils which perform a number of roles, such as providing local facilities, and representing their communities to larger local government bodies. Community councils are the equivalent of English parish councils. A community council may call itself a "town council" if it so wishes. The councils of three communities with city status – Bangor, St Asaph, and St Davids – are known as "city councils". Communities which are too small to have a council may have a community meeting instead: an example of direct democracy. The communities in the urban areas of the cities of Cardiff, Swansea and Newport do not have community councils.[11][12][13]

In the Eurostat Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS), Wales is a level-1 NUTS region, coded "UKL", which is subdivided as follows:

NUTS 1	Code	NUTS 2	Code	NUTS 3	Code
Wales	UKL	West Wales and The Valleys	UKL1	Isle of Anglesey	UKL11
				Gwynedd	UKL12
				Conwy and Denbighshire	UKL13
				South West Wales (Ceredigion, Carmarthenshire, Pembrokeshire)	UKL14
				Central Valleys (Merthyr Tydfil, Rhondda Cynon Taff)	UKL15
				Gwent Valleys (Blaenau Gwent, Caerphilly, Torfaen)	UKL16
				Bridgend and Neath Port Talbot	UKL17
				Swansea	UKL18
		East Wales	UKL2	Monmouthshire and Newport	UKL21
				Cardiff and Vale of Glamorgan	UKL22
				Flintshire and Wrexham	UKL23
				Powys	UKL24

• List of political parties in Wales
• List of Welsh principal areas
• List of Welsh principal areas by population
• List of Welsh principal areas by area
• List of Welsh areas by percentage of Welsh-speakers
• Welsh Government
• Geography of Wales
• List of communities in Wales
• List of electoral wards in Wales
• ISO 3166-2:GB, subdivision codes for the United Kingdom
• Local government in England
• Local government in Northern Ireland
• Local government in Scotland
• Political make-up of local councils in the United Kingdom#Wales

• Williams Commission report, January 2014
• LocalGov.co.uk – News updates on UK local government, including reorganisation
• Map of the UK counties and unitary administrations
• Map of all UK local authorities