SWANSEA (Welsh, Abertawe), a sea port of Glamorganshire, South Wales, on the banks and at the mouth of the Tawe river, 45 miles W. N. W. of Cardiff and 216 W. of London. A municipal, parlia mentary, and also (since 1888) county borough, it is the most important town in South Wales. Its rapid progress de pends on the manufacture of tin plate here and in the neighborhood; on its harbor and docks which afford every convenience for the largest vessels and steamships afloat; and on its geograph ical position, on a bay affording a spa cious, sheltered, and safe anchorage, sev eral hours nearer the open sea than any other port of comparable size in the Bris tol Channel. The Harbor Trust of Swan sea, with a capital of $7,500,000 and an income of upward of $500,000 per an num, possesses docks constructed since 1847 covering an area of over 60 acres. There is annually manufactured in Swansea and the immediate neighbor hood upward of two-thirds of the tin plates manufactured in Great Britain, representing a value of upward of $25, 000,000. There is still a large direct
export trade to the United States in tin and (the inferior) terne plates, though this branch of trade was much injured by the tariff legislation of 1890. The chief imports are copper, silver, lead, tin, and nickel, with their ores and alloys, iron and steel in various forms, iron ore, zinc, sulphur, phosphates, flour, grain, esparto, timber bricks, etc. The chief exports are tin, terne, and black plates, coal and coke, copper, zinc, and their ores, iron and steel, alkali, super phosphate, arsenic, etc. The charter dates from the days of King John and Henry III., renewed by subsequent sover eigns. The castle, of which a tower still remains, was founded in 1099 by the Earl of Warwick, but in the reign of Edward IV. passed by marriage from the Her berts to the Somerset family, and is still the property of the Dukes of Beaufort. The grammar school dates from 1682. Pop. (1919) 160,810.