Wales has thirteen historic counties, also known as ancient counties. They serve many cultural and geographic roles and were also the basis of modern elected local government in Wales from 1889 until 1974.Since then, local government has moved away from using historic counties as the basis of administrative areas. The Local Government Act 1972 created eight non-metropolitan counties for administrative purposes in 1974. At the same time the historic counties were abandoned by the Royal Mail as postal counties and were no longer shown on maps. These eight new administrative and ceremonial counties were themselves replaced in 1996 by the current principal areas of Wales, but were retained for Lieutenancy as preserved counties.
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