Swansea Bay (Welsh: Bae Abertawe) is a bay on the Bristol Channel on the southern coast of Wales. Places on the bay include Swansea and Port Talbot. The River Neath, River Tawe, River Afan, River Kenfig and Clyne River flow into the bay.
Swansea Bay (and upper reaches of the Bristol Channel) experience a large tidal range (Springs max 10m). The shipping ports in Swansea Bay are Swansea Docks, Port Talbot Docks and Briton Ferry wharfs.
Oyster fishing was once an important industry in Swansea Bay, employing 600 people at its height in the 1860s. However, overfishing, disease and pollution had all but wiped out the oyster population by 1920. In 2005 plans were announced to reintroduce the Oyster farming industry.
The bay is lined with sandy beaches. Each stretch of beach within the bay has its own individual name:
Coordinates: 51°35′31″N 3°57′50″W / 51.592°N 3.964°W
Swansea Beach stretches for five miles along Swansea Bay between the Maritime Quarter and the "Knab Rock" near Mumbles in Wales. It is backed by a promenade/cycle track (part of National Cycle Route 4) and a coastal road. The southern section of the Swansea Bay beach between Blackpill and Mumbles is designated Site of Special Scientific Interest.
Swansea Beach has a couple of named sections. The section of beach just outside Victoria park is known as "The Slip". Blackpill Beach is the section around the mouth of the Clyne River.
In recent years, tourism has provided a boost to the local economy. Swansea Bay itself was popular in Victorian times and in the early part of the 20th century. However, despite having dunes and golden sands over a large section of the Bay all the way from the mouth of the River Neath to Blackpill, with the exception of the Swansea Docks breakwater, it now rarely hosts more than a few hundred visitors on even the best day, even in the height of summer and has seen little of the tourist boom. Ironically in the last ten years or so, with the reduction in pollution (see below) has come an increase in the amount of sand on the lower stretches of the Bay at low tide which were once almost pure mud flats.
The Swansea Bay area of Wales is located north of the sea area of Swansea Bay. The term Swansea Bay is used by the Welsh Assembly Government for policy planning purposes as well as by a number of other organisations.
The boundaries of Swansea Bay are defined in the Welsh Assembly Government's Spatial Plan Data Project. In the Wales Spatial Plan, Swansea Bay includes all of the unitary authorities of Swansea and Neath Port Talbot and parts of Carmarthenshire, Powys and Bridgend county borough. The area is also a Travel to Work Area, which was defined in 2007. The Wales Spatial Plan identifies twenty-one key settlements in the area:
The population in the region as of 2007 is approximately 561,900.
Welsh Assembly Government supported developments:
The whole of Swansea Bay was being touted as a future city region that would have the city of Swansea as its focus but also include the urban settlements contiguous to Swansea; these would be Llanelli, Neath, Port Talbot, Ystradgynlais and Ammanford. The predicted size of this new city region is around 700,000 people who would live within 30 minutes drive from the centre of Swansea.
Swansea Bay may refer to the following places
See also:
Swansea (/ˈswɒnzi/ SWON-zee; Welsh: Abertawe [abɛrˈtauɛ], "mouth of the Tawe"), officially known as the City and County of Swansea, is a coastal city and county in Wales. It is Wales's second largest city and the UK's twenty-fifth largest city. Swansea lies within the historic county boundaries of Glamorgan. Situated on the sandy South West Wales coast, the county area includes the Gower Peninsula and the Lliw uplands. According to its local council, the City and County of Swansea had a population of 241,300 in 2014. The last official census stated that the city, metropolitan and urban areas combined concluded to be a total of 462,000 in 2011, making it the second most populous local authority area in Wales after Cardiff. During its 19th-century industrial heyday, Swansea was a key centre of the copper industry, earning the nickname 'Copperopolis'. Since 2011, Swansea has started to expand into a larger region known as the Swansea Bay City Region. After combining with other councils, it now includes Tenby and other parts of West Wales, its population including these areas an estimated 685,051. The chairman of the new region is Sir Terry Matthews
Coordinates: 51°36′54″N 3°56′56″W / 51.615°N 3.949°W
HM Prison Swansea is a Category B/C men's prison, located in the Sandfields area of Swansea, Wales. The prison is operated by Her Majesty's Prison Service, and is colloquially known as 'Cox's farm', after a former governor.
Swansea is a Victorian prison built between 1845 and 1861 to replace former prison accommodation at Swansea Castle. Both male and female inmates were incarcerated there until 1922, at which point all females were transferred to Cardiff Prison.
A total of 15 judicial executions took place at Swansea prison between 1858 and 1958. All of the condemned prisoners were hanged for the crime of murder. Their names, ages and dates of execution are:
Coordinates: 51°37′48″N 3°56′46″W / 51.630°N 3.946°W
The Swansea district (Welsh: Abertawe) was one of the four local government districts of West Glamorgan, Wales from 1974 to 1996. It was formed from the areas of the county borough of Swansea and Gower Rural District, from the administrative county of Glamorgan.
It inherited the city status of the county borough and so was styled as the "City of Swansea", and was governed by Swansea City Council. On March 22, 1982 the city was granted letters patent raising the mayor to the dignity of Lord Mayor.
The district was abolished in 1996, when it was merged with most of the Lliw Valley district to form the larger City and County of Swansea. The last leader of the council was Cllr Trevor Gordon Burtonshaw.