Wales (Welsh: Cymru) is one of the four constituent parts of the United Kingdom. Wales is located in the south-west of Great Britain and is bordered by the English counties of Cheshire, Shropshire, Herefordshire and Gloucestershire to the east, the Bristol Channel to the south, St George's Channel to the southwest, and the Irish Sea to the west and north.

Wales has not been politically independent since 1282, when it was conquered by King Edward I of England. The capital of Wales since 1955 has been Cardiff.

Welsh folk is known for a variety of instrumental and vocal styles, as well as more recent singer-songwriters drawing on folk traditions. The most traditional of Welsh instruments is the harp. The triple harp (telyn deires, "three-row harp") is a particularly distinctive tradition: it has three rows of strings, with every semitone separately represented, while modern concert harps use a pedal system to change key by stopping the relevant strings. It has been popularised through the efforts of Nansi Richards, Llio Rhydderch and Robin Huw Bowen. Another distinctive instrument is the crwth, which, superseded by the fiddle, lingered on later in Wales than elsewhere but died out by the nineteenth century at the latest.

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