WEST GLAMORGAN

county of southern Wales, created in 1974 from the county borough of Swansea and most of the western part of the former county of Glamorgan. The administrative seat is Swansea (q.v.). West Glamorgan has four administrative districts: Port Talbot, Lliw Valley, Neath, and Swansea. The county comprises three distinctive areas: the urban complex bordering Swansea Bay of the Bristol Channel, the hills and valleys of the western part of the South Wales coalfield, and the Gower peninsula. Apart from Gower, a rolling plateau with occasional ridges, the county consists mostly of sandstone plateaus, with the Rivers Neath and Tawe flowing in broad valleys. The Romans gained a military foothold in the area, and the Normans later fortified it. During the 18th century copper and lead smelting began in the lower valleys of the Neath and the Tawe, using the local timber and ores brought by sea from Cornwall and North Wales. These industries were succeeded in turn by tinplate manufacture and the development of steel production. Coal mining and the export of coal and tinplate products developed on a large scale. Coal mining developed in the western coalfield along parallel northeast-southwest valleys. Although mining elsewhere in South Wales declined after World War I, anthracite mining in northern and western West Glamorgan did not show the full impact of changing circumstances until after 1945; it too declined, leaving the single-industry mining communities without employment. New industries have been introduced at Resolven, Pontardawe, and Ystradgynlais to reorient the economy of the former mining valleys. The Swansea urban complex, including the city of Swansea, is virtually continuous from Llanelli (in Dyfed county) in the west to Margam in the east and extends into the valleys and around Swansea Bay toward the Gower Peninsula. After the decline of nonferrous-metals industries before 1914 and stagnation during the interwar years, the area has been redeveloped. Downtown Swansea has been transformed into a new regional shopping centre, while new residential and industrial estates have been constructed on the periphery of the city. The Llandarcy oil refinery is linked by pipeline to a steelworks situated at Port Talbot. The county also includes (within its Swansea district) the Gower peninsula, which is quite distinct from the rest of South Wales. Its level surface is fringed by a picturesque, cliffed coast, typified by sandy bays and limestone headlands. As well as providing vegetables and milk to the Swansea urban area, the peninsula has increasingly developed as a residential base for commuters and as a resort. Area 316 square miles (817 square km). Pop. (1991 prelim.) 357,800.