🇬🇧 Wales
Cardiff
Cardiff (population 370,000 city, 490,000 metropolitan area) is the capital of Wales and the youngest capital city in the European Union (Cardiff only became the official capital of Wales in 1955 — the most recently designated capital of any EU member state's constituent nation). The city has been transformed in the last 30 years from an industrial port (the "coal metropolis" that exported more coal than any other port in the world in the early 20th century) into a vibrant cultural capital with the most ambitious waterfront regeneration project in Europe (the Cardiff Bay development, begun 1987). Cardiff Castle (the Roman-Norman-Victorian Gothic fantasy castle in the city center), Cardiff Bay (the former coal docks now housing the Welsh Parliament (the Senedd), the Wales Millennium Centre and the Pierhead building), and the Millennium Stadium (the Principality Stadium — the most important rugby venue in Europe) define modern Cardiff. The Bute family (the Marquesses of Bute, who controlled the Cardiff coal trade and financed the most extravagant Victorian Gothic interiors in the world (Cardiff Castle and Castell Coch)) made Cardiff the most architecturally remarkable Victorian city in Wales.