Cardiff is a city and capital of Wales, administrative center of South Glamorgan, southern Wales, on the mouths of the Taff and Ely rivers on Bristol Channel. Cardiff is an important seaport and industrial center. Among its manufactures are steel, machinery, refined foods, metal products, textiles, and paper. Prominent structures include the 11th-century Cardiff Castle, Llandaff Cathedral, along with the 15th-century Church of Saint John the Baptist. Also of great interest is the National Museum of Wales. Cardiff is the seat of the Welsh National School of Medicine (1931) and the University Of Wales College Of Cardiff, founded in 1988 by a merger of the University College, Cardiff (1883) as well as the University of Wales Institute of Science and Technology (1866).
A Roman outpost was developed on the site in about AD 75. Occupied by the Normans in the 11th century, the community became a possession of feudal lords. It remained a small town through to the beginning of the Glamorganshire Canal in 1794 caused it to be an outlet for the mineral wealth of southern Wales. The first docks were finished in 1839, and also Cardiff eventually became the world's largest port pertaining to shipping coal, an activity that has since declined. During World War II (1939-1945) the city suffered deterioration from German bombing. Until 1974 Cardiff was the county town of the former county of Glamorganshire.
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