Current Time in Swansea, United Kingdom

Swansea, known in Welsh as Abertawe, stands on the sweeping curve of Swansea Bay in south Wales, where the River Tawe reaches the sea. Hills rise steeply behind the city, and to the west stretches the Gower Peninsula, a landscape of limestone cliffs, dunes and beaches that in 1956 became the first area in Britain designated for outstanding natural beauty. The maritime climate brings mild winters, cool summers and plenty of Atlantic rain.

With around two hundred and fifty thousand people in the wider city and county, Swansea is the second largest urban centre in Wales. Its economy today rests on services, healthcare, education, technology and tourism, a very different picture from the industrial past that made it famous.

A Viking name and a Norman castle mark its early history, but Swansea's transformation came with copper. From the eighteenth century, ore shipped in from Cornwall, Chile and Cuba was smelted in the Tawe valley using local coal, and by the middle of the nineteenth century the town processed a large share of the world's copper, earning the nickname Copperopolis. Tinplate, zinc and nickel followed, along with docks, railways and terrible pollution. The valley was later cleared and greened in one of Europe's largest land reclamation schemes. During the Second World War the centre was devastated by three nights of bombing in February 1941, which is why the modern city has few old buildings at its core.

Swansea is inseparable from Dylan Thomas, born here in 1914, who described it as an ugly, lovely town. His birthplace in the Uplands can be visited, Cwmdonkin Park where he played as a boy remains much as he knew it, and the Dylan Thomas Centre near the marina explores his life and work. The Glynn Vivian Art Gallery holds an excellent collection, and the National Waterfront Museum tells the story of Welsh industry in a striking modern building beside the docks.

The covered market, the largest in Wales, sells fresh cockles gathered on the Loughor estuary and laverbread, a seaweed preparation eaten with bacon at breakfast. Along the bay a promenade and cycle path lead to Mumbles, a seaside village with a pier, a lighthouse and a claim to fame as the terminus of the world's first passenger railway service, which began carrying paying travellers by horse drawn carriage in 1807. Beyond it lie the Gower beaches, with Rhossili and Three Cliffs Bay regularly named among the finest in Britain.

Sport matters a great deal here, with football and rugby both keenly followed, and the city has produced actors, singers and poets out of proportion to its size. Swansea University, spread between a park campus and a newer site on the beach, together with a second university, brings a large student population.

Trains reach London in about three hours, the M4 links the city eastward, and buses serve the region.

Swansea appeals for its beaches, its literary heritage and its warm, unpretentious Welsh character.