Mr P's Maths Column
Wales by the Numbers: A Mathematical Look at the Country
Last week I had the privilege of going with the Year 6’s on their amazing residential trip to Snowdonia in Wales. Wales is a beautiful part of the United Kingdom, rich in culture, history, and natural beauty. In this week’s column, I thought it would be nice to get a mathematical snapshot of Wales, in other words, Wales by numbers!
Firstly, let’s look at Wales’ population: it has a population of approximately 3.1 million people, which makes up 4.6% of the total UK population. To be honest, this was much less than I expected, especially when we climbing up Mount Snowdon and it seemed like there were a million people do the hike just that day! Speaking of Mount Snowdon (or by its correct Welsh name: Yr Wyddfa) it takes approximately 18,500 of my steps to hike to the top and back. The average age of a Welsh individual is 42 years old.
Wales covers an area of 8,023 square miles, which is about 20,779 square kilometres. Combined with the number of people in Wales, it works out to about 150 people per square kilometre. This is significantly lower than England 430 people per square kilometre.
Cardiff is the capital city of Wales and has a population of approximately 360,000 people, which makes up about 11% of the total population. Cardiff ranks as the 13th largest city in the whole of the UK.
As mentioned, Mount Snowdon, or Yr Wyddfa, is the highest mountain in Wales and the 76th highest mountain in the UK. The first 75 highest mountains in the UK are in Scotland! Mount Snowdon can be found in the Snowdonia National Park. Wales actually has three national parks: Eryri (Snowdonia), Bannau Brycheiniog (Brecon Beacons), and Pembrokeshire Coast. These three national parks cover just over 4000 square kilometes or 20% of the total land area in Wales.
Then lastly, it would be a travesty if I didn’t mention that Wales has the longest place name in the world, the famous Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, which is a staggering 58 letters long! (Interestingly, there is a hill in New Zealand that is 85 letters long, but I’m not counting that as a ‘place name’)
Parent problem of the week
Three builders are laying a brick wall. Freddie can lay 1,000 bricks in three hours, Jimmy can lay 1,000 bricks in two hours and Kevin can lay 1,000 bricks in six hours. How long will it take Freddie, Jimmy, and Kevin to lay 1,000 bricks if they all work together?
Solution to last week’s problem
A couple of weeks ago I presented this problem: There are 12 kids in a classroom. 6 kids are wearing socks and 4 are wearing shoes. 3 kids are wearing both. How many are bare feet?
The answer is that there are Five kids that are bare footed.