Mapping the Historic Boundaries of Wales: Commotes and Cantrefs
Understanding the historic administrative boundaries of Wales and how they have changed over time is integral to our understanding of the Welsh landscape. The Royal Commission has developed two digital geospatial layers using late-medieval sources and historic parish boundaries to recreate the boundaries of the commotes (cymydau) and cantrefs (cantrefi) of medieval Wales.
Future developments will examine how these boundaries have changed over time and map them in further detail. These digital resources will be made freely available to the public as an aid to encouraging research.
This data will be an important addition to our on-line services, particularly the List of Historic Place Names of Wales and The Inventory of Historic Battlefield in Wales.
This map gives an approximate indication of the boundaries of the smaller commotes
(cymydau) of Wales, as listed by Gruffudd Hiraethog (d.1564) in NLW Peniarth MS.147.
This map gives an approximate indication of the boundaries of the larger cantrefs
(cantrefi ) of Wales, as listed by Gruffudd Hiraethog (d.1564) in NLW Peniarth MS.147.
May 18, 2017
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10 Comments on "Mapping the Historic Boundaries of Wales: Commotes and Cantrefs"
[…] To view the maps visit https://rcahmw.gov.uk/mapping-the-historic-boundaries-of-wales-commotes-and-cantrefs/. […]
“freely available” is vague. Please can you clarify the licence that will apply to the data, and to your images?
The current page, for example, is labelled “Non-commercial Government Licence” – that does not not meet the definition of an “open licence”.
Hi Andy, we hope to make this data available under an Open Government Licence (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/) which is different to the Non-commercial Government Licence that applies to the content and images on this website.
Seriously guy’s really appreciate this, awesome work
It would make the project more interesting if there was a modern-day overlay that would show people the history of where they live
I am sure this is possible 
I was thinking exactly the same thing
Very interesting, but you need to improve the resolution to magnify
High resolution and GIS versions of these maps are freely available for consultation via computers within the Royal Commission’s library and search room. We plan for these to be digitally integrated across our web services for further research opportunities in the near future. Photocopies of these maps are available from the Commission’s enquiry service.
I’d be very interested in seeing these maps overlaid on a topographical map. Will these be available as ESRI compatible files?
Hi Paul, we will be enhancing the metadata for this layer over the next month and hope to make it available as a Web Feature Service for use within GIS.