County town: Cardigan
Cardiganshire, the Welsh Ceredigion, was historically the territory of the kingdom of Ceredigion, which emerged in the early medieval period. It became a shire county under the Laws in Wales Acts of 1536.
Cardiganshire is the Welsh heartland on Cardigan Bay, a county of Celtic rivers, lead mines, and small farming communities. Known in Welsh as Ceredigion, it is one of the most strongly Welsh-speaking areas of Wales. Aberystwyth, its principal town, is home to the National Library of Wales and the University of Wales, Aberystwyth — two of the most important cultural institutions in the country. The county's lead mines were economically significant from Roman times through the 19th century. Its coastline of sandy bays and dramatic cliffs, and its interior of moorland and forest, give it an unspoilt character. Cardigan, at the mouth of the Teifi, hosted the first recorded eisteddfod in 1176.
The historic counties of Wales were created under the Laws in Wales Acts of 1535–42, overlying a much older landscape of Welsh kingdoms — Gwynedd, Powys, Deheubarth, and Morgannwg — that had shaped settlement, culture, and lordship for centuries. The county of Cardiganshire incorporates territory from these earlier political divisions, and its boundaries preserve traces of the medieval Welsh landscape.
Wales's 13 historic counties were created under the Laws in Wales Acts of 1535–42, which brought Wales into the English legal and administrative system. Based partly on medieval Welsh kingdoms and Norman lordships, they were the framework of Welsh administration until 1974.
An Aubrey report for a specific location in Cardiganshire draws on historical maps, archaeological records, Domesday data and landscape history to tell the full story of any site in the county.
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