Читать книгу Walking in Carmarthenshire онлайн

5 страница из 39

Covering some 2398 sq km (11.5 percent of total Wales land mass), Carmarthenshire, or to give it its correct Welsh name, Sir Gaerfyrddin, is the third largest county in Wales. It has always been a large county, and up to 1974 held the accolade as the largest in Wales. During that year, following a seriously provocative set of boundary and authority changes, Carmarthenshire ceased to exist, being swallowed up, along with Pembrokeshire and Cardiganshire, in the new county of Dyfed. In 1996 it reappeared, following a further bout of reorganisation and boundary change; not quite in its original guise, but the one that we see today.

It is a county of great contrasts, stretching from the sandy beaches of Carmarthen Bay in the south to the empty uplands of the Cambrian Mountains in the north; from the high mountains of Y Mynydd Du in the east to the gently rolling farmland, along the Pembrokeshire border, in the west. Agricultural landscapes predominate, but among the folds of the hills and along the river valleys, there is a good spattering of pretty market towns, all of which are friendly, full of character and offer a range of places for refreshment or accommodation. The most extensive urban landscape occupies the southeastern corner of the county, an area that is also home to 65 percent of its resident population, who live in or around the towns of Llanelli and Burry Port, now both transformed from their industrial past.