Flintshire

The current administrative area of Flintshire (a unitary authority) came into existence in 1996, when the former administrative county of Clwyd was split into three smaller areas.

Geography

see List of places in Flintshire for a list of towns and villages.

It borders, in England, Merseyside (across the River Dee) and Cheshire, and in Wales, Wrexham and Denbighshire.

Industry

Parts of Flintshire have major manufactuing indistries. Amongst these are a Toyota plant that manufactures engines, a Corus Group steel works, Shotton Paper, but most importantly Airbus makes the wings for the A330 and the A380 at Broughton.

There are daily flights of the Super Guppy transport aircraft of Airbus wings from Broughton for the smaller aircraft. The wings for the A380, which are too large to be transported by air use a multi-modal transport using Flintshire's roads, the River Dee and the port of Mostyn, also in Flintshire. The motto of Airbus in Flintshire is: "Without us, it's just a bus"; meaning that the parts that make Airbus aircraft fly, rather than just run along the ground, are made in Flintshire.

Fairtrade

On November 19, 2004, Flintshire was granted Fairtrade County status.

Education

Flintshire Local Education Authority manages 75 primary schools, 3 special schools and 12 high schools.

Traditional County

The traditional county does not have the same boundaries as administrative Flintshire; in particular it has a large exclave called Maelor Saesneg, it also includes Prestatyn, Rhyl and St Asaph which are now administered by Denbighshire, as well as Bangor-on-Dee and Overton-on-Dee, now administered as part of Wrexham county borough. Other exclaves of Flintshire included the manors of Marford and Hoseley, Abenbury Fechan and Bryn Estyn, all on the outskirts of Wrexham, and also a small part of the parish of Erbistock around the Boat Inn. These were all completely surrounded by Denbighshire. Additionally, a small part of Flintshire, including the village of Sealand, was isolated across the River Dee when its course was changed to improve navigation.

The county was formed in 1284 under the terms of the Statute of Rhuddlan and included Cantrefi formerly parts of Gwynedd Is Conwy and Powys Fadog:

Tegeingl
Maelor Saesneg

It also included the Lordships of Mold, Hawarden, Mostyn and Hope.

Geography

Flintshire is a maritime county bounded to the north by the Irish Sea, to the northeast by the Dee estuary, to the east by Cheshire and to the south and southwest by Denbighshire. The Maelor Saesneg, was bounded on the northwest by Denbighshire, on the northeast by Cheshire, and on the south by Shropshire.

Flintshire is the smallest county in Wales. The coast along the Dee estuary is heavily developed by industry and the north coast much developed for tourism. The Clwydian Mountains occupy much of the west of the county. The highest point is Moel Fammau (1,820 feet / 554 metres). The chief towns are Buckley, Connah's Quay, Flint, Hawarden, Holywell, Mold, Queensferry, and Shotton. The main rivers are the Dee (the estuary of which forms much of the coast) and the Clwyd. The main industries are manufacturing of aircraft components (Airbus), engines (Toyota), paper (Shotton Paper), steel processing (Corus), agriculture and tourism.

Places of special interest include castles in Flint, Hawarden, Rhuddlan and Ewloe, and Wepre Country Park, Connah's Quay.

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