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Religion in Wales

Religion in Wales has, over the years, become increasingly diverse. Christianity was the religion of virtually all of the Welsh population until the late 20th century, but it has rapidly declined throughout the early 21st century. Today a plurality (46.5%) of people in Wales follow no religion at all.

Representing 43.6% of the Welsh population in 2021, Christianity is the largest religion in Wales. Wales has a strong tradition of nonconformism, particularly Methodism. The Church of England was the established church until 1920 when the disestablished Church in Wales, still Anglican, was self-governing.


Most adherents to organised religion in Wales follow one of the Christian denominations such as the Presbyterian Church of Wales, Baptist and Methodist churches, the Church in Wales, Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy. Other religions Welsh people may be affiliated with include Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, Sikhism and Druidism, with most non-Christian Welsh people found in the large cities of Cardiff and Swansea. Some modern surveys have suggested that most Welsh people do not identify with any religion, and record significantly less religious feeling in Wales than in other parts of the UK.

– Church in Wales

Bangor Cathedral

– Church in Wales

Brecon Cathedral

– Roman Catholic Church

Cardiff Cathedral

– Church in Wales

Llandaff Cathedral

– Church in Wales

Newport Cathedral

– Sikh Gurdwara Cardiff

Sikh Gurdwara Cardiff

– Church in Wales

St Asaph Cathedral

– Church in Wales

St David's Cathedral

– Roman Catholic Church

St. Joseph's Cathedral, Swansea

Swansea – Congregational church

Tabernacle Chapel, Morriston

– Roman Catholic Church

Wrexham Cathedral

Religion in the United Kingdom

Anglican Communion

Cragoe, Matthew. "George Osborne Morgan, Henry Richard, and the Politics of Religion in Wales, 1868–74." Parliamentary History 19.1 (2000): 118–130.

Davies, Ebnezer Thomas. Religion in the Industrial Revolution of South Wales (U. of Wales Press, 1965).

Field, Clive D. "Counting Religion in England and Wales: The Long Eighteenth Century, c. 1680–c. 1840." Journal of Ecclesiastical History 63.04 (2012): 693–720. New estimates of the religious composition of the population in 1680, 1720, 1760, 1800 and 1840.

Harris, Chris, and Richard Startup, eds. The Church in Wales: The Sociology of a Traditional Institution (U of Wales Press, 1999), the Church of England.

Jenkins, Geraint H. Literature, religion and society in Wales, 1660-1730 (University of Wales Press, 1978)

Jones, Anthony. Welsh chapels (National Museum Wales, 1996).

Jones, David Ceri, and Eryn Mant White. The Elect Methodists: Calvinistic Methodism in England and Wales, 1735-1811 (U of Wales Press, 2012).

Jones, J. Gwynfor. "Reflections on the religious revival in Wales 1904-05." Journal of the United Reformed Church History Society 7.7 (2005): 427–445.

Morgan, Barry. "The Church in Wales." in Ian S. Markham and J. Barney Hawkins IV, eds., The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to the Anglican Communion (2013): 452–463.

Morgan, D. Densil. The Span of the Cross: Christian Religion and Society in Wales, 1914-2000 (U of Wales Press, 1999)

online

Morgan, D. Densil. Wales and the Word: Historical Perspectives on Religion and Welsh Identity (2008)

Morgan-Guy, John. Religion and Society in the Diocese of St Davids 1485–2011 (Routledge, 2016).

Pope, Robert, ed. Religion and National Identity: Wales and Scotland c. 1700-2000 (2001).

online

Randall, Ian. "Martyn Lloyd-Jones and Methodist Spirituality." Wesley and Methodist Studies 5 (2013): 97–122. (1899-1981)

Thomas, James Edward. Social Disorder in Britain 1750-1850: The Power of the Gentry, Radicalism and Religion in Wales (IB Tauris, 2011).

Walker, David, ed. A History of the Church in Wales (Church in Wales Publications for the Historical Society of the Church in Wales, 1976).

Williams, Glanmor, ed. Welsh reformation essays (University of Wales Press, 1967)

Williams, Glanmor. Renewal and Reformation: Wales C. 1415-1642 (Oxford University, 1993) .

online