Talk:Ceredigion

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On the understanding that the Ceredigion/Cardiganshire debate is over (see below), please allow me to raise a different issue. Should a Wikipedia article be referring to this county as a desert? I have only ever heard this word used in the phrase 'green desert' when referring to mid Wales - used in the sense that few people live here. For those not familiar with the UK or with Ceredigion, the word desert without clarification is likely to give the wrong impression. I realise that there is a link to another article 'desert of Wales', but I think that a brief clarification should occur within the article. Dalekmikey 16:03, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Surely this should be under Cardigan? When the name was in use, this was surely the English name for it? john 09:44, 21 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Anyone out there? Cardigan? I mean, I'm all for Welsh names for current Welsh provinces, but is it really conventional in English to call the old province "Ceredigion"? john 00:07, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)

http://www.ceredigion.gov.uk/ has no mention of Cardigan as an alternate name.... Morwen 00:14, Jan 22, 2004 (UTC)

Well, I'm not sure that for "Traditional counties" that don't really have any real existence anymore, we should privilege current conventions over historic conventions. "Cardigan" or "Cardiganshire" is almost certainly more likely to be encountered than "Ceredigion" by most English-speakers in books, and so forth. However, from our articles it would appear that the old counties are back, which would mean that Ceredigion is a currently existing unit, in which case I withdraw the suggestion. If it is currently called Ceredigion/Cardigan, as it seems to be, the article should be there. john 04:44, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)

This entity is a welsh principal area and not an historic County. The article on Cardiganshire should deal exclusively with the historic County; this should deal exclusively with the welsh principal area that is currently calling itself "Ceredigion"; they are not the same entity, and neither aritlce should give such an impression. 80.255

This makes sense to me. john 15:42, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The name "Ceredigion" is the only name of the present modern-day county, and is used in both English and Welsh, There is no official English equivalent. "Cardiganshire" (although the same area as this county) refers to the historic county (1282-1974) and cannot be used as an English form of the word "Ceredigion". Other counties do have Welsh and English spellings (such as Ynys Mon/Anglesey, but Ceredigion is referred to as Ceredigion in both languages. Ceredigion can also be used to refer to the historic kingdom that existed before 1282 (originally ruled by King Ceredig in the 5th century) Edward conquered the principality of Wales in 1282 splitting the area into several counties. Cardigan was one of these counties, its name was an anglicization of the name Ceredigion as it co-incided roughly with the older Welsh kingdom of this name.

There is a town called Cardigan(Aberteifi) which used to be the county town of the old county of Cardiganshire, however, I suspect that this was named after the anglicized name Cardiganshire after the formation of that county due to it being the county town and was originally not connected with the name Ceredigion/Cardigan as the Welsh form of the town's name is Aberteifi (mouth of the river Teifi). Confusingly, this Welsh form of the towns name was used in the Welsh equivalent of the old county (Cardiganshire) as "Sir Aberteifi" (County of Aberteifi) rather than the word Ceredigion which is where the word Cardigan is derived from! --Cap 12:36, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Please note that Cardiganshire still exists, as do all traditional counties. This is a common misconception. Trilobite (Talk) 22:29, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

please explain. --Cap 09:46, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

You talk about Cardiganshire "the historic county (1282-1974)" which is erroneous. Cardiganshire was never abolished. Local government has been reorganised plenty of times over the whole of Britain, but the traditional counties were never abolished, they just ceased to correspond to the areas controlled by local authorities. See Traditional counties of Wales. — Trilobite (Talk) 23:22, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

You are simultaneously right and wrong, Trilobite. There is much nostalgia in England for the 'traditional counties' of the UK, but in Wales the issue is a little more complicated. The area which roughly corresponds to the current county of Ceredigion was called Ceredigion long before the English forced the name 'Cardiganshire' upon the place, which perhaps explains why the local council voted to rename the county Ceredigion instead of Cardiganshire as soon as they were able to. As such, you normally only get the English referring to the county as 'Cardiganshire' these days. Wikipedia articles should refer to the local name of the place and even English speakers in Wales refer to the county as Ceredigion. As such, Cardiganshire is only a historical entity and should be avoided today.Twrist 11:58, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

• 5th Century Kingdom of Ceredigion
• 1282 County of Cardiganshire (Sir Aberteifi in Welsh (not Ceredigion!))
• 1974 Ceredigion, a region within Dyfed
• 1996-present Ceredigion, a county in Wales

This table suggests there is a single entity which has changed its borders over time. As such it is a gross simplification and plain wrong. What you are actually referring two are three separate things with overlapping timeframes - the kingdom, the county and the local government area. This would be better: Owain (talk) 14:52, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

• Kingdom of Ceredigion: 5th c. - 7th c. Incorporated into Seisyllwg, then in 10th c. into Deheubarth. Conquered 1282.
• County of Cardigan: 1282 - present day.
• Local government area: Cardiganshire 1889-1974. Ceredigion district 1974-1996. Ceredigion principal area 1996 - present day.

It may well be the case that Cardiganshire still exists because it was never officially abolished, fine - but the simple fact is, no-one refers to the place as Cardiganshire! As long as I've lived here, I've never once heard it called Cardiganshire. The important institutions in the county - The National Library of Wales and the University of Wales Aberystwyth and Lampeter all have 'Ceredigion' in their addresses; when you drive into the county, the signs say 'Ceredigion'; The local government, police and law refer to it as Ceredigion. If an obscure piece of law was discovered which stated London was actually called Saestown, in reality, people would still call it London. Perhaps that's a bad example, but my point is that it can be 'officially' called whatever you want - my concern here is that Wikipedia should represent a reality, not would you would like to be a reality. 217.43.204.15 15:00, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

No-one? Have you asked every single person on the planet? I thought not. Since 2000, the Royal Mail have allowed people to put whatever they like in their addresses. What does that prove? When you drive into the county there are no signs marking it at all. The signs you are referring to are the signs put there by the local authority to mark ITS boundaries, not those of the county of Cardigan. It just so happens that because the two are so similar in area there are no separate signs. You will notice however that there ARE county border signs for Merioneth, Brecknock, Radnor and Montgomery. Signing is a local authority responsibility — hence the current mess. Owain (talk) 15:42, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Just to add my 2 pennies' worth to this debate, the notification of Council Tax issued this week says, in very clear text - "Ceredigion County Council is the billing authority for the County of Ceredigion under the Local Government Finance Act 1992". Which would surely suggest that the aforementioned county exists under that name? If not, surely there are legal problems with this Council Tax notification? 81.157.92.20 14:02, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

I really don't see what all the fuss is about. As someone who was in born in Ceredigion the 1970s, I remember some people - generally incomers and some older residents - referring to Cardiganshire/Sir Aberteifi, but Ceredigion is now almost universally used. Owain states that the that there are county border signs for Merioneth, Brecknock, Radnor and Montgomery, but they are NOT county border signs - rather the vestiges of the old districts, which followed, as a means of placating local concerns that they would lose their identities within the larger unitary authorities. Note that in the case of Meirionydd - the Welsh version was adopted as name of the district in 1974 - and this is the only version used on signs, not Meirionnydd/Merioneth. Moreover, the boundary signs for Arfon and Dwyfor are still used - both of which were districts formed out of part of the old Caernarvonshire.