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98-497: The town was important in the Welsh settlement of Chubut . It was named Trevelin (from Trefelin , the Welsh for "mill town") after the first flour mill, known as "Los Andes", was established there by John Daniel Evans  [ es ] in 1891. Evans had previously become well known for leading expeditions into the Pampas in search of new lands and mineral reserves, which had earned him

196-526: A first language is largely concentrated in the less urban north and west of Wales, principally Gwynedd , inland Conwy and Denbighshire , northern and south-western Powys , the Isle of Anglesey , Carmarthenshire , North Pembrokeshire , Ceredigion , and parts of western Glamorgan , although first-language and other fluent speakers can be found throughout Wales. However, Cardiff is now home to an urban Welsh-speaking population (both from other parts of Wales and from

294-751: A British national identity only. Most residents of Wales (96 per cent, 2.9 million) reported at least one national identity of English, Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish, or British. A survey published in 2001, by the Centre for Research into Elections and Social Trends at Oxford University (sample size 1161), found that 14.6 per cent of respondents described themselves as British, not Welsh; 8.3 per cent saw themselves as more British than Welsh; 39.0 per cent described themselves as equally Welsh and British; 20.2 per cent saw themselves as more Welsh than British; and 17.9 per cent described themselves as Welsh, not British. Forms of Christianity have dominated religious life in what

392-555: A Mediterranean one, where most (75%) of the precipitation is concentrated from April to August, the cooler months with a dry period from September to March. Snowfall can occur during the colder months while rainfall predominates in warmer months; hail rarely occurs. The mean temperature in Trevelin ranges from 3.8 °C (39 °F) in July, the coldest month to 16.1 °C (61 °F) in January,

490-529: A Scottish ethnicity tick-box be included in the census in Scotland, and with this inclusion as many as 88.11% claimed Scottish ethnicity. Critics argued that a higher proportion of respondents would have described themselves as of Welsh ethnicity had a Welsh tick-box been made available. Additional criticism was levelled at the timing of the census, which was taken in the middle of the 2001 United Kingdom foot-and-mouth crisis . Organisers said that this had not affected

588-696: A Welsh Mormon settlement, lays claim to a greater proportion of inhabitants of Welsh descent than anywhere outside Wales itself. Malad's local High School is known as the "Malad Dragons", and flies the Welsh Flag as its school colours. Welsh people have also settled in New Zealand and Australia. Around 1.75 million Americans report themselves to have Welsh ancestry, as did 458,705 Canadians in Canada's 2011 census . This compares with 2.9 million people living in Wales (as of

686-539: A box describing themselves as of Scottish or of Irish ethnicity, an option not available for Welsh or English respondents. Prior to the census, Plaid Cymru backed a petition calling for the inclusion of a Welsh tick-box and for the National Assembly to have primary law-making powers and its own National Statistics Office . In the absence of a Welsh tick-box, the only tick-boxes available were 'white-British,' 'Irish', or 'other'. The Scottish parliament insisted that

784-555: A distinct genetic difference between those from northern and southern Wales, which was interpreted as the legacy of Little England beyond Wales . A study of a diverse sample of 2,039 individuals from the United Kingdom allowed the creation of a genetic map and the suggestion that there was a substantial migration of peoples from Europe prior to Roman times forming a strong ancestral component across England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, but which had little impact in Wales. Wales forms

882-747: A distinct genetic group, followed by a further division between north and south Wales, although there was evidence of a genetic difference between north and south Pembrokeshire as separated by the Landsker line . Speaking of these results, Professor Peter Donnelly , of the University of Oxford, said that the Welsh carry DNA which could be the most ancient in UK and that people from Wales are genetically relatively distinct. The population of Wales doubled from 587,000 in 1801 to 1,163,000 in 1851 and had reached 2,421,000 by 1911. Most of

980-689: A handbook, Llawlyfr y Wladfa , to publicize the scheme to form a Welsh colony in Patagonia which was distributed throughout Wales. Towards the end of 1862, Captain Love Jones-Parry and Lewis Jones (after whom Trelew was named) left for Patagonia to decide whether it was a suitable area for Welsh emigrants. They first visited Buenos Aires where they held discussions with the Interior Minister Guillermo Rawson then, having come to an agreement, headed south. They reached Patagonia in

1078-608: A heritage back to the Iron Age tribes. When the Roman legions departed Britain around 400, a Romano-British culture remained in the areas the Romans had settled, and the pre-Roman cultures in others. The people in what is now Wales continued to speak Common Brittonic with significant influence from Latin , as did people in other areas of western and northern Britain; this language eventually evolved into Old Welsh . The surviving poem Y Gododdin

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1176-487: A new "little Wales beyond Wales". He spent some years in the United States , where he observed that Welsh immigrants assimilated very quickly compared with other peoples and often lost much of their Welsh identity. Thus, the original proposal was to establish a new Wales overseas where Welsh settlers and their culture would be generally free from foreign domination. He proposed setting up a Welsh-speaking colony away from

1274-607: A place now known as 'Dyffryn y Merthyron' or The Valley of the Martyrs. Following a territorial dispute between Argentina and Chile in early 1902, the Limits Commission met in School No.18, Trevelin on 30 April of that year. The British arbiter was Sir Thomas Holdich (King's Surveyor General of India) whilst the interested parties were represented by Francisco Pascasio Moreno (Argentina) and Dr. Balmaceda (Chile). The inhabitants of

1372-417: A rarity in the region where mid-summer frosts occur every year. Nighttime temperatures rarely drop below −10 °C (14 °F) and although snowfall is frequent, it does not cover the ground for long periods of time. Winters are stormy with frequent rain, sleet and snow while summers are cool, windy and relatively dry. Mean annual precipitation is 632 mm (25 in). The precipitation pattern resembles

1470-660: A reference to the Welsh. Until c.  1560 the word was spelt Kymry or Cymry , regardless of whether it referred to the people or their homeland. During their time in Britain , the ancient Romans encountered tribes in present-day Wales that they called the Ordovices , the Demetae , the Silures and the Deceangli . The people of what is now Wales were not distinguished from the rest of

1568-475: A sense of "land of fellow-countrymen", "our country", and notions of fraternity. The use of the word Cymry as a self-designation derives from the post-Roman Era relationship of the Welsh with the Brythonic-speaking peoples of northern England and southern Scotland, the peoples of " Yr Hen Ogledd " (English: The Old North ). The word came into use as a self-description probably before the 7th century. It

1666-683: A small ship named the Candelaria , and were driven by a storm into a bay which they named Porth Madryn , after Jones-Parry's estate in Wales. The town that grew near the spot where they landed is now named Puerto Madryn . On their return to Wales they declared the area to be very suitable for colonization. On 28 July 1865, 153 Welsh settlers arrived aboard tea clipper Mimosa . The Mimosa settlers, including tailors , cobblers , carpenters , brickmakers , and miners , comprised 56 married adults, 33 single or widowed men, 12 single women (usually sisters or servants of married immigrants), and 52 children;

1764-532: A walk across the parched plain with a single wheelbarrow to carry their belongings. Some died and a baby, Mary Humphries, was born on the march. John Williams was the only colonist with any form of rudimentary medical skill . So disheartened were some settlers, they requested that the British Government settle them on the Falkland Islands. However, this request was ignored. Once they reached the valley of

1862-520: Is a focal point for many Welsh Hindus. There are about 2,000 Sikhs in Wales, with the first purpose-built gurdwara opened in the Riverside area of Cardiff in 1989. The Sabbatarian temperance movement was also historically strong among the Welsh; the sale of alcohol was prohibited on Sundays in Wales by the Sunday Closing (Wales) Act 1881 – the first legislation specifically issued for Wales since

1960-519: Is a re-working of the Welsh anthem, " Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau ", called " Gwlad Newydd y Cymry " ('"The New Country of the Welsh"'). The new anthem was penned by Lewis Evans and is sung to the same tune as " Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau ". Patagonia is a 2011 film about the Welsh settlement in Argentina. In the BBC's 2015 Patagonia with Huw Edwards , Huw Edwards travelled to Patagonia and met with descendants of

2058-554: Is attested in a praise poem to Cadwallon ap Cadfan ( Moliant Cadwallon , by Afan Ferddig) c.  633 . In Welsh literature , the word Cymry was used throughout the Middle Ages to describe the Welsh, though the older, more generic term Brythoniaid continued to be used to describe any of the Britonnic peoples , including the Welsh, and was the more common literary term until c.  1100 . Thereafter Cymry prevailed as

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2156-507: Is centred on Gaiman , Dolavon , Trelew , and Trevelin . There are 70,000 Welsh-Patagonians. However, Chubut estimates the number of Patagonian Welsh speakers to be about 1,500, while other estimates put the number at 5,000. The idea of a Welsh colony in Patagonia was put forward by Michael D. Jones , a Welsh nationalist nonconformist preacher based in Bala, Gwynedd , who had called for

2254-615: Is descended from Brythonic, spoken across Britain since before the Roman invasion . In 2016, an analysis of the geography of Welsh surnames commissioned by the Welsh Government found that 718,000 people (nearly 35% of the Welsh population) have a family name of Welsh origin, compared with 5.3% in the rest of the United Kingdom, 4.7% in New Zealand, 4.1% in Australia, and 3.8% in the United States, with an estimated 16.3 million people in

2352-699: Is held every September at Gaiman. The main Eisteddfod del Chubut is held every October at Trelew . Other annual eisteddfodau are held at Trevelin , in the Andes and at Puerto Madryn along the South Atlantic coast. In 2006, the first of a two-Test tour to Argentina by the Wales national rugby union team was played in Puerto Madryn, which was a 27–25 win for Argentina. In 2019, 1,411 people undertook Welsh courses in

2450-555: Is in early Welsh and refers to the British kingdom of Gododdin with a capital at Din Eidyn ( Edinburgh ) and extending from the area of Stirling to the Tyne. Offa's Dyke was erected in the mid-8th century, forming a barrier between Wales and Mercia . The process whereby the indigenous population of Wales came to think of themselves as "Welsh" (a name applied to them by Anglo-Saxon settlers )

2548-474: Is not clear. There is plenty of evidence of the use of the term Brythoniaid (Britons); meanwhile, the earliest use of the word Kymry (referring not to the people but to the land—and possibly to northern Britain in addition to Wales) is found in a poem c.  633 . The name of the region in northern England now known as Cumbria is derived from the same root. Only gradually did Cymru (the land) and Cymry (the people) come to supplant Brython . Although

2646-523: Is now Wales for more than 1,400 years. Most Welsh people of faith are affiliated with the Church in Wales or other Christian denominations such as the Presbyterian Church of Wales , Catholicism , and Russian Orthodox Christianity. Wales has a long tradition of nonconformism and Methodism . Some Welsh people are affiliated with either Buddhism , Hinduism , Judaism , Islam or Sikhism . In

2744-464: Is uncertain how many people in Wales considered themselves to be of Welsh ethnicity; the 2001 UK census did not offer 'Welsh' as an option; respondents had to use a box marked "Other". Ninety-six per cent of the population of Wales thus described themselves as being White British . Controversy surrounding the method of determining ethnicity began as early as 2000, when it was revealed that respondents in Scotland and Northern Ireland would be able to tick

2842-629: Is your country of birth? and How would you describe your national identity? (for the first time 'Welsh' and 'English' were included as options), What is your ethnic group? ('White Welsh/English/Scottish/Northern Irish/British' was an option) and Can you understand, speak, read or write Welsh? . As of the 2011 census in Wales, 66 per cent (2.0 million) of residents reported a Welsh national identity (either on its own or combined with other identities). Of these, 218,000 responded that they had Welsh and British national identity. Just under 17 per cent (519,000) of people in Wales considered themselves to have

2940-476: The 2001 census ). There is no known evidence which would objectively support the legend that the Mandan , a Native American tribe of the central United States, are Welsh emigrants who reached North America under Prince Madog in 1170. The Ukrainian city of Donetsk was founded in 1869 by a Welsh businessman, John Hughes (an engineer from Merthyr Tydfil ) who constructed a steel plant and several coal mines in

3038-489: The Bardic Chair was awarded for the first time in Y Wladfa to a female poet: Gaiman hotel owner Monica Jones de Jones, for an Awdl on the subject of Rhyddid ("Freedom"). The article's author continued, "The Patagonia Eisteddfod itself, while sharing those elements common to Eisteddfodau in Wales itself, nonetheless is, in other respects, quite a different affair. As well as haunting Welsh folk tunes , and recitations in

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3136-638: The Bronze Age . The British groups encountered by the Romans were thus largely descended from these Beaker populations. The post-Roman period saw a significant alteration in the genetic makeup of southern Britain due to the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons; however, historical evidence suggests that Wales was little affected by these migrations. A study published in 2016 compared samples from modern Britain and Ireland with DNA found in skeletons from Iron Age, Roman and Anglo-Saxon era Yorkshire. The study found that most of

3234-493: The Isle of Anglesey (19%). Among respondents between 16 and 74 years of age, those claiming Welsh ethnicity were predominantly in professional and managerial occupations. In advance of the 2011 UK Census, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) launched a census consultation exercise. They received replies from 28 different Welsh organisations and a large proportion of these referred to Welsh ethnicity, language or identity. For

3332-501: The Polish name for Italy) have a similar etymology. The modern Welsh name for themselves is Cymry (plural) (singular: Cymro [m] and Cymraes [f]), and Cymru is the Welsh name for Wales. These words (both of which are pronounced Welsh pronunciation: [ˈkəm.ri] ) are descended from the Brythonic word kombrogi , meaning "fellow-countrymen". Thus, they carry

3430-505: The Welsh language ( Welsh : Cymraeg ) is protected by law. Welsh remains the predominant language in many parts of Wales, particularly in North Wales and parts of West Wales , though English is the predominant language in South Wales . The Welsh language is also taught in schools in Wales; and, even in regions of Wales in which Welsh people predominantly speak English on a daily basis,

3528-522: The 1930s. The construction of a dam on the Rio Chubut 120 kilometres (75 mi) west of Trelew, inaugurated on 19 April 1963, removed the risk of flooding in the Lower Chubut Valley. The Welsh have left their mark on the landscape, with windmills and chapels across the province, including the distinctive wood and corrugated zinc Capel Salem and Trelew 's Salon San David. Many settlements along

3626-577: The 2001, around 7,000 classified themselves as following "other religions", including a reconstructed form of Druidism , which was the pre-Christian religion of Wales (not to be confused with the Druids of the Gorsedd at the National Eisteddfod of Wales). Approximately one third of the population, some 980,000 people, profess no religious faith whatsoever. The census showed that slightly fewer than 10% of

3724-636: The Argentine Patagonia , beginning in 1865, mainly along the coast of the lower Chubut Valley . In 1881 , the area became part of the Chubut National Territory of Argentina which, in 1955, became Chubut Province . In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Argentine government encouraged emigration from Europe to populate Argentina and south Patagonia particularly, which until the Conquest of

3822-506: The Chubut River, their first settlement was a small fortress on the site which later became the town of Rawson , now the capital of Chubut Province . This was referred to as Yr Hen Amddiffynfa ('The Old Fortress'). The first houses, constructed from earth, were washed away by a flash flood in 1865, and new houses of superior quality were built to replace them. The floods also washed away crops of potatoes and maize. The rainfall in

3920-793: The Desert had sparsely rural and coastal settlements. Indigenous peoples of Patagonia include the Tehuelche and the Yahgan . Between 1856 and 1875, 34 settlements of immigrants of various nationalities were established in Santa Fe and Entre Ríos . In addition to the main colony in Chubut, a smaller colony was set up in Santa Fe by 44 Welsh people who left Chubut, and another group settled at Coronel Suárez in southern Buenos Aires Province . The Welsh-Argentine community

4018-720: The English language. Patagonian Welsh (Cymraeg y Wladfa) is a dialect of the Welsh language which is spoken in Y Wladfa in the Argentine region, Patagonia . There has been migration from Wales to the rest of Britain throughout its history. During the Industrial Revolution thousands of Welsh people migrated, for example, to Liverpool and Ashton-in-Makerfield . As a result, some people from England, Scotland and Ireland have Welsh surnames. Welsh settlers moved to other parts of Europe, concentrated in certain areas. During

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4116-556: The Industrial Revolution. The English were the most numerous group, but there were also considerable numbers of Irish; and smaller numbers of other ethnic groups, including Italians migrated to South Wales. Wales received other immigration from various parts of the British Commonwealth of Nations in the 20th century, and African-Caribbean and Asian communities immigrated particularly to urban Wales. In 2001, it

4214-600: The Iron Age and Roman era Britons showed strong similarities with both each other and modern-day Welsh populations, while modern southern and eastern English groups were closer to a later Anglo-Saxon burial. Another study, using Iron Age and Anglo-Saxon samples from Cambridgeshire, concluded that modern Welsh people carry a 30% genetic contribution from Anglo-Saxon settlers in the post-Roman period; however, this could have been brought about due to later migration from England into Wales. A third study, published in 2020 and based on Viking era data from across Europe, suggested that

4312-616: The Jewish population of that area, which reached a peak of 4,000–5,000 in 1913, has declined; only Cardiff has retained a sizeable Jewish population, of about 2000 in the 2001 Census. The largest non-Christian faith in Wales is Islam, with about 22,000 members in 2001 served by about 40 mosques, following the first mosque established in Cardiff . A college for training clerics has been established at Llanybydder in West Wales . Islam arrived in Wales in

4410-530: The Middle Ages. From the early 1960s, local council areas were permitted to hold referendums every seven years to determine whether they should be "wet" or "dry" on Sundays: most of the industrialised areas in the east and south went "wet" immediately, and by the 1980s the last district, Dwyfor in the northwest, went wet; since then there have been no more Sunday-closing referendums. Despite Christianity dominating Wales, more ancient traditions persisted. In 1874 it

4508-576: The US may have been 26 times greater than Welsh emigration), to many countries, including the US (in particular, Pennsylvania ), Canada and Y Wladfa in Patagonia , Argentina. Jackson County, Ohio was sometimes referred to as "Little Wales", and one of several communities where Welsh was widely spoken. There was a Welsh language press but by the late 1940s, the last Welsh language newspaper, y Drych began to publish in English. Malad City in Idaho , which began as

4606-475: The Welsh language is spoken at home among family or in informal settings, with Welsh speakers often engaging in code-switching and translanguaging . In the English-speaking areas of Wales, many Welsh people are bilingually fluent or semi-fluent in the Welsh language or, to varying degrees, capable of speaking or understanding the language at limited or conversational proficiency levels. The Welsh language

4704-436: The Welsh language was certainly used at the time, Gwyn A. Williams argues that even at the time of the erection of Offa's Dyke, the people to its west saw themselves as Roman, citing the number of Latin inscriptions still being made into the 8th century. However, it is unclear whether such inscriptions reveal a general or normative use of Latin as a marker of identity or its selective use by the early Christian Church . There

4802-526: The Welsh migration. Welsh harpist Catrin Finch and conductor Grant Llewelyn were part of the concerts. The Welsh settlers to Patagonia settled on indigenous Tehuelche land. The Welsh were able to survive and thrive by bartering Welsh bread for meat, by learning from Tehuelche people how to hunt, and by learning from the Tehuelche how to irrigate their fields with water from the Chubut River. Y Wladfa's anthem

4900-485: The Welsh migrations. The First Minister of Wales , Carwyn Jones , attended the celebration. In October 2018, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales undertook an historic visit to Y Wladfa to give two concerts in a newly refurbished concert hall, that had previously been a wool factory on the outskirts of Trelew. These performances attracted thousands of local visitors and helped celebrate the 150th anniversary of

4998-562: The Welsh population are regular church or chapel goers (a slightly smaller proportion than in England or Scotland), although about 58% of the population see themselves as Christian in some form. Judaism has quite a long history in Wales, with a Jewish community recorded in Swansea from around 1730. In August 1911, during a period of public order and industrial disputes, Jewish shops across the South Wales coalfield were damaged by mobs. Since that time

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5096-417: The Welsh trace, on average, 58% of their ancestry to the Brittonic people, up to 22% from a Danish-like source interpreted as largely representing the Anglo-Saxons, 3% from Norwegian Vikings, and 13% from further south in Europe such as Italy , to a lesser extent, Spain and can possibly be related to French immigration during the Norman period. A 2015 genetic survey of modern British population groups found

5194-401: The acquisition of Welsh is a gateway to better careers, according to research from the Welsh Language Board and Careers Wales. The Welsh Government identified media as one of six areas likely to experience greater demand for Welsh speakers: the sector is Wales's third-largest revenue earner. Although Welsh is a minority language , and thus threatened by the dominance of English, support for

5292-443: The area (both the indigenous Mapuche Tehuelche and the Welsh colonists) voted to remain in Argentina. The town, in the Valley of the 16th of October  [ es ] ( Welsh : Cwm Hyfryd/Bro Hydref), is near the Percy River  [ es ] , which flows south into the Río Grande, crosses the frontier with Chile, and thereafter is known as the Río Futaleufú . The Percy River was named after Percy Wharton, an American who

5390-403: The area after 1914 was mainly from Italy and other southern European countries. Welsh became a minority language. The creation of a cooperative , the Cwmni Masnachol Camwy (Spanish: Compañía Mercantil de Chubut ), was important. The Society traded on the settlers' behalf in Buenos Aires and acted as a bank with 14 branches. The cooperative society collapsed in the Great Depression of

5488-443: The area was much less than the colonists had been led to expect, leading to crop failures. The settlers first made contact with the local Tehuelche people almost a year after their arrival. After some difficult early years of suspicion and some violence, the Tehuelche people established cordial relationships with the Welsh and helped the settlement survive the early food shortages. The settlers, led by Aaron Jenkins (whose wife Rachel

5586-476: The border was defined by a line connecting the highest peaks in the area, but it later became clear that this line was not the same as the line separating the watersheds, with some of the rivers in the area flowing westwards. Argentina and Chile agreed that the United Kingdom should act as arbitrator, and the views of the Welsh settlers were canvassed. In 1902, despite an offer of a league of land per family from Chile, they voted to remain in Argentina. Serious damage

5684-467: The colonists mounted a number of expeditions to explore other parts of Patagonia to seek more cultivable land. In 1885, the Welsh asked the governor of Chubut Province , Luis Jorge Fontana , for permission to arrange an expedition to explore the Andean part of Chubut. Fontana decided to accompany the expedition in person. By the end of November 1885 they had reached a fertile area which the Welsh named Cwm Hyfryd (Pleasant Valley). By 1888, this site at

5782-402: The colony winning the gold medal at international expositions at Paris and Chicago . The mouth of the Chubut River was difficult to navigate, being shallow and with shifting sandbanks, and it was decided that a railway was required to connect the Lower Chubut valley to Puerto Madryn (originally Porth Madryn) on the Golfo Nuevo on the southern side of the Valdes Peninsula . Lewis Jones

5880-419: The colony, Y Brut ( The Chronicle ), appeared; Ein Breiniad ( Our Privilege ) followed in 1878. Both were short-lived, only six issues of each title being circulated. Lewis Jones established Y Dravod ( The Discussion ) in 1891, and this had greater longevity: a weekly issue was produced until 1961. By the mid-1880s most of the good agricultural land in the Lower Chubut valley had been claimed, and

5978-473: The countries studied having at least partial Welsh ancestry. Over 300,000 Welsh people live in London . The names "Wales" and "Welsh" are modern descendants of the Anglo-Saxon word wealh , a descendant of the Proto-Germanic word walhaz , which was derived from the name of the Gaulish people known to the Romans as Volcae and which came to refer indiscriminately to inhabitants of the Roman Empire . The Old English -speaking Anglo-Saxons came to use

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6076-455: The cultivation of wheat, and therefore the land was turned over to the rearing of cattle. Trevelin has a temperate oceanic climate ( Köppen Cfb ), but with a rainfall pattern similar to the Mediterranean climate ( Köppen Csb ). The climate is milder than that of other locations on the Argentine side of Northern Patagonia because of the low altitude and the direct exposure to Pacific winds. This microclimate allows for intensive agriculture,

6174-508: The early 19th century, and founded towns in Labrador 's coast region; in 1819, the ship Albion left Cardigan for New Brunswick , carrying Welsh settlers to Canada; on board were 27 Cardiganian families, many of whom were farmers. In 1852, Thomas Benbow Phillips of Tregaron established a settlement of about 100 Welsh people in the state of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. Internationally Welsh people have emigrated, in relatively small numbers (in proportion to population, Irish emigration to

6272-463: The end of the 19th century there were some 4,000 people of Welsh descent living in Chubut. The last substantial migration from Wales took place shortly before World War I , which put a halt to further immigration. Approximately 1,000 Welsh immigrants arrived in Patagonia between 1886 and 1911; on the basis of this and other statistics, Glyn Williams estimated that perhaps no more than 2,300 Welsh people ever migrated directly to Patagonia. Immigration to

6370-423: The first time ever in British census history the 2011 Census gave the opportunity for people to describe their identity as Welsh or English. A 'dress rehearsal' of the Census was carried out on the Welsh island of Anglesey because of its rural nature and its high numbers of Welsh speakers. The Census, taken on 27 March 2011, asked a number of questions relating to nationality and national identity, including What

6468-445: The foot of the Andes had become another Welsh settlement, named in Spanish Colonia 16 de Octubre . As the population grew here, the towns of Esquel and Trevelin were founded. In 1893, a Welsh-language newspaper called Y Drafod (The Conversation) was founded by Lewis Jones to promote Welshness in Y Wladfa. This area became the subject of the Cordillera of the Andes Boundary Case 1902 between Argentina and Chile. Initially

6566-416: The growing Welsh-medium schools of Cardiff itself) due to the centralisation and concentration of national resources and organisations in the capital. For some, speaking Welsh is an important part of their Welsh identity. Parts of the culture are strongly connected to the language — notably the Eisteddfod tradition, poetry and aspects of folk music and dance. Wales also has a strong tradition of poetry in

6664-420: The increase came in the coal mining districts; especially Glamorganshire , which grew from 71,000 in 1801 to 232,000 in 1851 and 1,122,000 in 1911. Part of this increase can be attributed to the demographic transition seen in most industrialising countries during the Industrial Revolution , as death rates dropped and birth rates remained steady. However, there was also a large-scale migration into Wales during

6762-408: The influence of the English language . He recruited settlers and provided financing; Australia , New Zealand and even Palestine were considered, but Patagonia was chosen for its isolation and the Argentines' offer of 100 square miles (260 km ) of land along the Chubut River in exchange for settling the still-unconquered land of Patagonia for Argentina. Patagonia, including the Chubut Valley,

6860-586: The issue. As many as a third of all properties in Gwynedd are bought by people from outside Wales. The issue of locals being priced out of the local housing market is common to many rural communities throughout Britain, but in Wales the added dimension of language complicates the issue, as many new residents do not learn the Welsh language. A Plaid Cymru taskforce headed by Dafydd Wigley recommended land should be allocated for affordable local housing, called for grants for locals to buy houses, and recommended that council tax on holiday homes should double. However,

6958-429: The language grew during the second half of the 20th century, along with the rise of Welsh nationalism in the form of groups such as the political party Plaid Cymru and Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (Welsh Language Society). The language is used in the bilingual Welsh Parliament (Senedd) and entered on its records, with English translation. The high cost of translation from English to Welsh has proved controversial. In

7056-581: The late 19th and early 20th centuries, a small wave of contract miners from Wales arrived in Northern France; the centres of Welsh-French population are in coal mining towns, and particularly the French department of Pas-de-Calais along with miners from many other countries. They tended to cluster in communities around their churches. Settlers from Wales (and later Patagonian Welsh) arrived in Newfoundland in

7154-481: The majority (92) were from the South Wales Coalfield and English urban centres. There were few farmers . This was rather unfortunate, particularly when they discovered that the attractions of the area had been oversold and they had landed in an arid semi- desert with little food; they had been told that the area was like lowland Wales. At the coast there was little drinking water , and the group embarked on

7252-705: The matter was eventually resolved by the intervention of the president of Argentina , Julio Argentino Roca . These factors, and a lack of unclaimed farmable land, caused 234 people to leave for Liverpool aboard the Orissa on 14 May 1902, with 208 of them subsequently travelling to Canada , arriving at Saltcoats, Saskatchewan , in late June, although some of these families later returned to Chubut and later migrated to Australia. Some other settlers moved to Río Negro Province in Argentina. Many of those who left Chubut were late arrivals who had failed to obtain land of their own, and they were replaced by more immigrants from Wales. By

7350-463: The mid 19th century, and it is thought that Cardiff's Yemeni community is Britain's oldest Muslim community, established when the city was one of the world's largest coal exporting ports. Hinduism and Buddhism each have about 5,000 adherents in Wales, with the rural county of Ceredigion being the centre of Welsh Buddhism. Govinda 's temple and restaurant, run by the Hare Krishnas in Swansea ,

7448-463: The nickname 'El Baqueano' (meaning guide or scout). One of the tourist attractions of Trevelín is the grave of Malacara , Evans' horse, who a few years earlier in 1884 had saved his master's life by escaping down a steep ravine when his travelling party was attacked by a group of indigenous people led by Cacique (chief) Foyel. The three other Welshmen with whom he was travelling (Richard Davies, John Hughes and John Parry) were killed and buried nearby at

7546-443: The original settlers, to discuss what had survived of the uniquely Welsh culture their ancestors aimed to protect. Welsh people Modern ethnicities The Welsh ( Welsh : Cymry ) are an ethnic group and nation native to Wales who share a common ancestry, history and culture . Wales is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom . The majority of people living in Wales are British citizens . In Wales,

7644-545: The past the rules of the British Parliament forbade the use of Welsh in any proceedings. Only English was allowed as the only language all members were assumed to speak. In 2017, the UK government agreed to support the use of Welsh in the Welsh Grand Committee, although not in parliamentary debate in the house outside of this committee. In 2018 Welsh was used in the grand committee for the first time. Welsh as

7742-606: The peoples of southern Britain; all were called Britons and spoke Common Brittonic , a Celtic language . This language, and Celtic culture more generally, seems to have arrived in Britain during the Iron Age , though some archaeologists argue that there is no evidence for large-scale Iron Age migrations into Great Britain, in which case the Celticisation of Britain would have occurred through cultural diffusion. Most people in Wales today regard themselves as modern Celts , claiming

7840-638: The predominant language in parts of Wales, particularly in North Wales and parts of West Wales. According to the 2001 census the number of Welsh speakers in Wales increased for the first time in 100 years, with 20.5% of a population of over 2.9 million claiming fluency in Welsh. In addition, 28% of the population of Wales claimed to understand Welsh. The census revealed that the increase was most significant in urban areas, such as Cardiff with an increase from 6.6% in 1991 to 10.9% in 2001, and Rhondda Cynon Taf with an increase from 9% in 1991 to 12.3% in 2001. However,

7938-743: The proportion of Welsh speakers declined in Gwynedd from 72.1% in 1991 to 68.7% in 2001, to 65.4% in 2011 and 64.4% in 2021. Similarly, in Ceredigion the percentage fell from 59.1% in 1991 to 51.8% in 2001, to 47.3% in 2011 and to 45.3% in 2021. Ceredigion saw a 19.5% influx of new residents between 1991 and 2001. The decline in Welsh speakers in much of rural Wales is attributable to non-Welsh-speaking residents moving to North Wales, driving up property prices above what locals may afford, according to former Gwynedd county councillor Seimon Glyn of Plaid Cymru , whose controversial comments in 2001 focused attention on

8036-465: The recent visit to Chubut Province by Archdruid Meirion Evans  [ cy ] and 30 members of the Gorsedd Cymru in order to revive the Gorsedd Y Wladfa in a ceremony held in a specially constructed stone circle near Gaiman . Every year, the Eisteddfod festival takes place in the town of Trevelin . BBC reporters attended the 2001 Eisteddfod del Chubut at Trelew and watched as

8134-416: The region, which was the highest number on record for the project. During 2023-24, there were over 970 registered learners (schools and adult learners) – a rise from 623 in 2020. In 2014, Professor E. Wyn James of Cardiff University estimated that there were perhaps as many as 5,000 people in Patagonia who could speak Welsh. On 28 July 2015, celebrations took place to celebrate the 150th anniversary of

8232-505: The results. The foot-and-mouth crisis delayed the 2001 United Kingdom general election ; the first time since the Second World War that any event had postponed an election. In the census, 14% of the population took the 'extra step' to write in that they were of Welsh ethnicity. The highest percentage of those identifying as of Welsh ethnicity was recorded in Gwynedd (at 27%), followed by Carmarthenshire (23%), Ceredigion (22%) and

8330-625: The same census shows that 25% of residents were born outside Wales. The number of Welsh speakers in other places in Britain is uncertain, but there are significant numbers in the main cities, and there are speakers along the Welsh-English border . Even among Welsh speakers, very few people speak only Welsh, with nearly all being bilingual in English. However, a large number of Welsh speakers are more comfortable expressing themselves in Welsh than in English. Some prefer to speak English in South Wales or

8428-472: The steamer Vesta . The town that grew at the railhead was named Trelew (Town of Llew) in honour of Lewis Jones. The town grew rapidly and in 1888 became the headquarters of the Compañía Mercantil del Chubut (Chubut Trading Company). Initially the settlers were largely self-governing, with all men and women of 18 years of age or over having the right to vote. In January 1868, the first newspaper of

8526-632: The term to refer to the Britons in particular. As the Britons' territories shrank, the term came ultimately to be applied to a smaller group of people, and the plural form of Wealh , Wēalas , evolved into the name for the territory that best maintained cultural continuity with pre-Anglo-Saxon Britain: Wales. The modern names for various Romance-speaking people in Continental Europe (e.g. Wallonia , Wallachia , Valais , Vlachs , and Włochy ,

8624-608: The unique Spanish-accented Welsh of the Patagonians, there are also rousing displays of Argentine folk dancing which owe everything to the culture of the gauchos and nothing to the somewhat tamer dance routines of the Welsh homeland." Current Eisteddfod competitions are bilingual , in both Patagonian Welsh and Argentine Spanish , and include poetry, prose, literary translations (Welsh, Spanish, English, Italian, and French), musical performances, arts, folk dances, photography, and filmmaking among others. The Eisteddfod del Juventud

8722-517: The urbanised areas and Welsh in the North or in rural areas. A speaker's choice of language can vary according to the subject domain (known in linguistics as code-switching ). Due to an increase in Welsh-language nursery education, recent census data reveals a reversal of decades of linguistic decline: there are now more Welsh speakers under five years of age than over 60. For many young people in Wales,

8820-602: The valley bear Welsh names. During the British Government's repatriation of the 11,313 Argentine POWs taken during the 1982 Falklands War , Welsh-speaking British merchant seamen and British soldiers from the Welsh Guards were shocked to find themselves addressed in Patagonian Welsh by an Argentine POW who was on the way home to Puerto Madryn . Over the years since, close ties between Wales and Y Wladfa have been reestablished. A 2001 BBC article described in detail

8918-448: The warmest month. Frosts can occur at any time, even in summer, which limits the range of agricultural activities. Welsh settlement in Argentina Y Wladfa ( Welsh pronunciation: [ə ˈwladva] , 'The Colony'), also occasionally Y Wladychfa Gymreig ( Welsh pronunciation: [ə wlaˈdəχva ɡəmˈreiɡ] , 'The Welsh Settlement'), refers to the establishment of settlements by Welsh colonists and immigrants in

9016-462: Was caused by floods in the 1890s and 1900s, which devastated Rawson and to a lesser extent Gaiman , though Trelew was not affected. There was also disagreement between the settlers and the government of Argentina , which introduced conscription and insisted on males of military age drilling on Sundays. This ran counter to the Sabbatarian principles of the settlers and caused much ill-feeling, though

9114-486: Was claimed by Buenos Aires but it had little control over the area (which was also claimed by Chile). Jones had been corresponding with the Argentine government about settling an area known as Bahía Blanca where Welsh immigrants could preserve their language and culture. The Argentine government granted the request as it put them in control of a large tract of land. A Welsh immigration committee met in Liverpool and published

9212-581: Was immigration to Wales after the Norman Conquest , and several Normans encouraged immigration to their new lands; the Landsker Line dividing the Pembrokeshire "Englishry" and "Welshry" is still detectable today. The terms Englishry and Welshry are used similarly about Gower . Recent research on ancient DNA has concluded that much of Britain's Neolithic population was replaced by Beaker people in

9310-595: Was reported as common for an officiant to walk in front of the coffin with a horse's skull, which may be a tradition linked with the Mari Lwyd tradition. The Welsh language is in the Insular Celtic family; historically spoken throughout Wales, with its predecessor Common Brittonic once spoken throughout most of the island of Great Britain. Prior to the 20th century, large numbers of Welsh people spoke only Welsh, with little or no fluent knowledge of English. Welsh remains

9408-511: Was settled in Cwm Hyfryd between 1885 and 1904 before returning to Los Angeles, USA. A replica of John Evans' Los Andes Flour Mill can be found today at the Nant Fach Museum , Trevelin, in an area known as Comarca de los Alerces. The decline of the flour milling industry in the area can be dated to 1949 when the government of Juan Perón declared that the Chubut region was not appropriate for

9506-532: Was the driving force, and in 1884 the Argentine Congress authorized the construction of the Central Chubut Railway by Lewis Jones y Cía. Raising funds for the project locally proved difficult, so Lewis Jones went to the United Kingdom to seek funds, where he enlisted the assistance of Asahel P. Bell, an engineer. Work on the railway began in 1886, helped by the arrival of another 465 Welsh settlers on

9604-446: Was the first to bring up the idea of systematic use of irrigation canals), soon established Argentina's first irrigation system based on the Chubut River (in Welsh, Afon Camwy , 'winding river'), irrigating an area three or four miles (five or six km) to each side of the 50-mile (80 km) long stretch of river and creating Argentina's most fertile wheatlands. By 1885, wheat production had reached 6,000 tons, with wheat produced by

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