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North Wales is an electoral region of the National Assembly for Wales, consisting of nine constituencies. The region elects thirteen members, nine directly elected constituency members and four additional members. The electoral region was first used in the 1999 Welsh Assembly election, when the Assembly for Wales was created.
Contents
Each constituency elects one Assembly Member by the first past the post electoral system, and the region as a whole elects four additional or top-up Assembly Members, to create a degree of proportional representation. The additional member seats are allocated from closed lists by the d'Hondt method, with constituency results being taken into account in the allocation.
County and Westminster boundaries
As created in 1999, the region covered the most of the preserved county of Clwyd, part of the preserved county of Gwynedd, and part of the preserved county of Powys. Other parts of these preserved counties were within the Mid and West Wales electoral region. For the 2007 Welsh Assembly election, however, boundaries changed, and the region now covers all of the preserved county of Clwyd and part of the preserved county of Gwynedd. The rest of Gwynedd is in the Mid and West Wales region.
The Assembly constituencies have the names of constituencies of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (Westminster). For Westminster election purposes, however, there are no electoral regions, and constituency boundary changes became effective for the 2010 United Kingdom general election.
Electoral region profile
The region is a mix of rural and urban areas, with the population higher in the east, where can be found the region's largest town, Wrexham, and the working-class conurbations of Deeside. The western areas, including the Isle of Anglesey (Ynys Mon), are largely rural. Although Anglesey and Gwynedd are home to large numbers of Welsh speakers, the language is not widely spoken in the north-east.
Regional AMs elected 2011
† Resigned as AM following her election to the UK House of Commons on 7 May 2015; replaced by Janet Haworth from 27 May 2015.