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Official capital of Wales since only 1955 (hence the annoyingly ubiquitous "Europe's Youngest Capital" slogan), the buoyant city of
CARDIFF
(Caerdydd) has swiftly grown into its new status. A number of progressive developments, not least the new, sixty-member Welsh National Assembly, are giving the city the feel of an international capital, if not always a very Welsh one: compared with Swansea, Cardiff is very anglicized - you'll rarely hear Welsh on the city's streets.
The second Marquis of Bute built Cardiff's first dock in 1839, opening others in swift succession. The Butes, who owned massive swathes of the rapidly industrializing South Wales valleys, insisted that all coal and iron exports use the family docks in Cardiff, and it became one of the busiest ports in the world. In the hundred years up to the turn of the twentieth century, Cardiff's population had soared from almost nothing to 170,000, and the spacious and ambitious new civic centre in Cathays Park was well under way. The twentieth century saw varying fortunes: the dock trade slumped in the 1930s and the city suffered heavy bombing in World War II, but with the creation of Cardiff as capital in 1955, optimism and confidence in the city have blossomed. Many large governmental and media institutions have moved here from London, and the development of the dock areas around the new Assembly building to be built in Cardiff Bay has given a largely positive boost to the cityscape
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