Welsh Kingdoms - Geography

Geography

The total area of Wales is 20,779 km2 (8,023 sq mi), or 9% of the area of Great Britain. Much of the landscape is mountainous with treeless moors and heath, and having large areas with peat deposits. There is approximately 1,200 km (746 mi) of coastline and some 50 offshore islands, the largest of which is Anglesey. The present climate is wet and maritime, with warm summers and mild winters, much like the later medieval climate, though there was a significant change to cooler and much wetter conditions in the early part of the era. The southeastern coast was originally a wetland, but reclamation has been ongoing since the Roman era.

There are deposits of gold, copper, lead, silver and zinc, and these have been exploited since the Iron Age, especially so in the Roman era. In the Roman era some granite was quarried, as was slate in the north and sandstone in the east and south.

Native fauna included large and small mammals, such as the brown bear, wolf, wildcat, rodents, several species of weasel, and shrews, voles and many species of bat. There were many species of birds, fish and shellfish.

The early medieval human population has always been considered relatively low in comparison to England, but efforts to reliably quantify it have yet to provide widely acceptable results.