Preserved counties of Wales

The preserved counties of Wales are the current areas used in Wales for the ceremonial purposes of Lieutenancy and Shrievalty. They are based on the counties created by the Local Government Act 1972 and used for local government and other purposes between 1974 and 1996.

Usage
The Local Government (Wales) Act 1994 abolished the eight ceremonial counties created by the Local Government Act 1972. However, it created the concept of preserved counties based on their areas, to be used for purposes such as Lieutenancy. This usage was consolidated by the Lieutenancies Act 1997

In addition to these two ceremonial functions, the Boundary Commission should try to avoid crossing preserved county borders when drawing up Parliamentary constituencies, where practicable.

Certain statutes already in force were amended to include reference to them - as of 2009, the only remaining provisions still extant are:


 * The Sheriffs Act 1887 (c. 55) - The counties that High Sheriffs are appointed to are the preserved counties.
 * The Defence Act 1842 (c. 94) - Lieutenants are those appointed to preserved counties.
 * The Sea Fisheries (Shellfish) Act 1967 (c. 83) - Relevant portions of the sea shore shall be deemed to be within preserved counties.
 * The Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986 (c. 56) - As far as practicable, no preserved county or any part of a preserved county shall be included in a constituency which includes the whole or part of any other preserved county.

Boundary changes
The preserved counties were originally almost identical to the 1974–1996 counties, but with a few minor changes intended to ensure preserved counties were composed of whole principal areas. Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant, Llansilin and Llangedwyn were transferred from Clwyd to Powys, and Wick, St Brides Major, Ewenny and Pentyrch were transferred from Mid Glamorgan to South Glamorgan. However, these changes still left two county boroughs, Conwy and Caerphilly split between preserved counties.

In order to rectify this, the National Assembly for Wales made two changes of substance to the boundaries. These changes came into effect on 2 April 2003. The part of the local government area of Conwy which had been in Gwynedd was transferred to Clwyd, and the part of the local government area of Caerphilly which had been in Mid Glamorgan was transferred to Gwent. The boundary between Mid Glamorgan and South Glamorgan was also re-aligned to reflect small changes in local government boundaries. Each preserved county now encompasses between one and five whole local government areas.

The boundary between Mid Glamorgan and Powys was further modified on 1 April 2010 to reflect the 2009 local government boundary changes in the Vaynor area.

List of Preserved Counties
The population figures are mid-year estimates for 2007 from the Office for National Statistics, grouping component unitary authority area figures into their respective preserved counties.