About 400 000 people live in Cardiff, the capital city of the principality of Wales. Together with the surrounding area, it totals about 1.1 million people.
Cardiff is the United Kingdom's eleventh-largest city region. It is the place where government and many office businesses, such as banks and insurance are found. It is also the home of the Welsh Parliament.
Cardiff, however, does not have a long history as a large town as so many other important cities do. It was still a small town sited where the River Taff reached the sea until the 19th century. Its growth was entirely due to being a port to transfer coal from the mining valleys of South Wales to ships that would take coal to the British Empire.
It was only made into a city in 1905. It became the capital of Wales as recently as 1955.
The name Cardiff tells of its Roman origins as Cardiff means the (Roman) fort on the River Taff. Caer means fort in the Welsh language, and diff derives from taff. The fort was used mainly to fend off attacks by the Saxons in the last centuries of the Roman Empire.
After the Romans left, the site of Cardiff was probably abandoned. But its importance as a defensive site was not lost on King William the Conqueror, the first of the Normans. He brought the idea of fort building back to Britain, and instructed that a simple fortified motte and bailey castle be built in 1081. That motte, with its keep on top, is still the core of Cardiff Castle, and the major landmark of Cardiff. You can even find traces of the Roman fort in the walls of the castle, although much of what you see today is the result of alterations in Victorian times.
Although the people who were in the Cardiff area before the Romans came were Celtish tribes, the people who founded the town next to the castle in Norman times were mainly English. By the Middle Ages Cardiff had become the centre of the English Norman Marcher Lordship of Glamorgan. Town walls were built in the 12th century.
In 1404, as part of his efforts to get independence from England, Owain Glyndŵr and his men burned the wooden walls and wooden houses of Cardiff. But he was not successful, and the town was soon rebuilt.
Cardiff remained a small town in a farming area until the beginning of the 19th century when the Marquess of Bute, who owned much of the land around Cardiff, began building the docks. He saw there was money to be made from getting the coal of the Welsh valleys to the sea and ships. But for the ships to pick up cargo there had to be docks. Beacause he changed the whole history and importance of Cardiff, he is now called "the creator of modern Cardiff".
As the Railway age began, the docks were soon linked to the Taff Vale Railway, and as a result, Cardiff became the main port for exports of coal from the eastern part of the South Wales coalfield. At one point the dock areas – known as known as Tiger Bay – made up the world's largest coal port.
The Great Western Railway also soon linked Cardiff to the rest of the UK.
The Cardiff Pierhead building, now such a landmark of the bay, was built as the headquarters of the dock company.
The port attracted people from all over the United Kingdom, and a tenth of the people in Victorian Cardiff were born in Ireland.
Cardiff also benefited from being a transport hub for the coal trade, and as a result, the British Coal Exchange was built in Cardiff. This was to lay the foundations for the growth of business in Cardiff. A steelworks were also built here.
But after the First World War, demand for Welsh coal became smaller, and trade through Cardiff docks slowed to only half of what it had been at the start of the century.
As eventually Cardiff became the capital of Wales, new government office were built here and the character of the city changed from coal and steel to offices, government and finance.
The Steelworks closed in 1978. Without docks or steelworks there was a huge gap in the city. The Cardiff Bay Development Corporation started to advertise the old docklands and railway sidings area between the city and the sea for modern housing and offices, and that is how you see it today.
Cardiff Bay is on the coast, and so, unusually for a big city, it has the seaside almost on its doorstep. Once ignored in the times of the Industrial Age, the seaside is a big advantage for attracting younger people who want to live in pleasant environment while working in offices.
As a result, the city has grown towards the sea, with the main office development connecting the two. They make part of the new waterfront area at Cardiff Bay. This is also where the Welsh Parliament and the Wales Millennium Centre arts complex have been built, brining the city to sea again.
