Swansea AbertaweCity and County of SwanseaDinas a Sir Abertawe Stadium

Swansea (/ˈswɒnzi/; Welsh: Abertawe [abɛrˈtawɛ]) is a coastal city and county in Wales. Officially known as the City and County of Swansea. (Welsh: Dinas a Sir Abertawe) Swansea, which includes Swansea Bay (Welsh: Bae Abertawe) and the Gower Peninsula, is on the southwest coast of Wales and within the historic county boundaries of Glamorgan and the ancient Welsh commote of Gwyr. Swansea is the second largest city in Wales and the twenty-fifth largest city in the United Kingdom. Swansea is the second most populous local authority area in Wales with a population of 241,300 in 2014. Together with Neath and Port Talbot, Swansea formed a wider Urban Area of 300,352 in 2011.

During the 19th-century industrial heyday, Swansea was the key centre of the copper-smelting industry, earning the nickname Copperopolis.

History

Ancient history

The area around Swansea has a unique archaeological history dating back to the Palaeolithic. Finds at Long Hole Cave on the Gower Peninsula have been interpreted as that of the first modern humans in Britain, and the same area is also home to the oldest ceremonial burial in Western Europe, discovered at Paviland in 1823, and dated to 22,000 BC The area also has many Bronze Age and Iron Age sites, such as the burial mound at Cillibion and the hill fort at Cil Ifor. There is also the remains of a Roman villa again on the Gower peninsula.

Medieval Swansea

The area that would become Swansea is located on the eastern edge of the cwmwd of Gwyr, in the Cantref Eginawc, the easternmost Cantref of Ystrad Tywi. The area was noted for its valuable land and was highly contested by the early Welsh kingdoms. During the Viking Age, the mouth of the Tawe became a focus for trade, and a trade post may have been founded sometime between the 9th and 11th centuries. When the Normans took control of the settlement, they built Swansea Castle c. 1106 and minted coins bearing the names Swensi, Sweni and Svens