Cardiff

The name comes from Brythonic words meaning "the fort of the Taff". The Romans built a fort near the mouth of the river in AD 75 over a settlement they had founded in the 50s, and it was occupied until the end of the 4th century. In 1081 William I ordered work to begin on a castle keep inside the old Roman walls, and Cardiff became the centre of the Norman lordship of Glamorgan. After the Laws in Wales Acts it became the county town of Glamorgan. Even so, the 1801 census counted only 1,870 inhabitants, far behind Merthyr and Swansea.

Coal changed everything. From the 1830s the 2nd Marquess of Bute built docks linked to the Taff Vale Railway, and Cardiff became the main export port for the coal of the Rhondda, Cynon and Rhymney valleys. Its population grew by nearly 80 per cent a decade between 1840 and 1870, and by 1881 it was the largest town in Wales. At its peak the dock district, Tiger Bay, was the busiest port in the world; the price of coal was set at the Coal Exchange, where the first million-pound deal was struck in 1907. Edward VII made Cardiff a city in 1905, and the 3rd Marquess turned the castle into a Victorian Gothic fantasy.

The coal trade slumped between the wars, the Blitz wrecked Llandaff Cathedral, and the East Moors steelworks closed in 1978. In 1955 the government declared Cardiff the capital of Wales, and the city hosted the Commonwealth Games in 1958. From the late 1980s the docklands were rebuilt as Cardiff Bay, with a barrage creating a freshwater lake, and after devolution the Senedd building opened beside it in 2006.

As the capital, Cardiff hosts most of the great national occasions, and none is bigger than international rugby. On Six Nations weekends the streets around the Principality Stadium fill with red shirts and singing hours before kick-off, and the stadium also stages football and major concerts. The city has its own football and rugby clubs and a large student population during term time.

Cardiff's docks made it one of the first places in modern Britain to be thought of as multicultural: sailors and settlers from around the world lived in Tiger Bay, and the city remains ethnically diverse through its trading past, post-war immigration and its universities. The Welsh language, which had retreated to a few chapels and churches by the late 19th century, has grown again through Welsh-medium schools and migration from the rest of Wales; the number of Welsh speakers doubled between 1991 and 2021.

The bay is the centre of the city's arts life, with the Wales Millennium Centre staging opera, musicals and dance, and Cardiff is a major centre of television and film production — the 2005 revival of Doctor Who has been made here, along with Torchwood and Sherlock. Pride Cymru, an annual LGBT pride festival, is held each summer, and the Winter Wonderland ice rink and funfair in front of City Hall marks the Christmas season.

About 384,000 people lived in Cardiff in 2024, and the Cardiff Capital Region around it holds about 1.5 million, roughly half the population of Wales. At the 2021 census about 12 per cent of residents aged three and over spoke Welsh. The city is the seat of the Welsh Government and the Senedd, the Welsh base of the national broadcasters, and home to Cardiff University and the University Hospital of Wales, the largest of the city's seven NHS hospitals.

The inner districts follow the shape of the old town: Cathays, Gabalfa and Plasnewydd to the north have large student populations, Pontcanna is popular with young professionals, and Butetown, Grangetown, Riverside and Canton lie to the south and west. Some western estates remain economically disadvantaged, with high numbers of unemployed households, a reminder that the prosperity of the bay and the centre has not reached everyone.

Daily life is lived close to the parks — Bute Park, Pontcanna Fields and Roath Park are where people run, cycle and walk dogs. Many commuters come in by train from Penarth, Barry and the valleys each morning, and the city centre's shopping streets and arcades are busy at weekends. Senedd elections were held in May 2026, and politics, the 20 mph speed limit and the state of the city's roads are everyday topics of conversation.

Cardiff eats much as the rest of Wales does, with lamb, cheese and teatime baking at the centre. Welsh cakes, or picau ar y maen, are small spiced fruit cakes cooked on a bakestone or griddle, and the Central Market in the city centre is known for a small bakery that sells them fresh. Bara brith, a fruit loaf made with tea-soaked dried fruit, and Welsh rarebit — a hot cheese sauce, often with ale or mustard, on toast — appear in cafés, while cawl, a broth of lamb or beef with leeks, potatoes and root vegetables, is recognised as a national dish of Wales.

The Central Market has its entrance on St Mary Street, among the city's grand shopping streets. A short walk away, Caroline Street, known locally as Chippy Lane, is lined with fish and chip shops. Cardiff Bay's Mermaid Quay has waterfront restaurants and bars, and the terraced streets of Roath and the inner districts hold the cafés and international restaurants of the city's mixed communities.

Beer is part of match days: Brains, a regional brewery based in Cardiff, sponsors the shirts of the Wales national rugby team, and its beer is poured in city-centre pubs on match days.