Wrexham, United Kingdom

Wrexham is not built on a major river, but on a relatively flat plateau between the lower Dee Valley and the Clwydian Range, the easternmost mountains of north-east Wales. This position enabled it to grow as a market town, as a crossroads between England and Wales, and later as an industrial hub – due to its rich natural reserves of iron ore and coal. But three small rivers flow through parts of the city: the Clywedog, Gwenfro and Alyn. Wrexham is also famed for the quality of its underground water reserves, which gave rise to its previous dominance as a major brewing centre.

Originally a market town with surrounding urban villages, Wrexham has now coalesced with a number of urban villages and forms North Wales' largest city. Including adjacent urban areas to Wrexham, such as that of the Gwersyllt, Rhosllanerchrugog, Coedpoeth and Llay totals to a population of over 100,000 residents.

Wrexham is approximately 13 miles (21 km) south of Chester, 30 miles (50 km) north-west of Shrewsbury, 43 miles (69 km) south-west of Manchester, and 140 miles (230 km) north of Cardiff.

Wrexham's economy has moved away from heavy industry to high tech manufacturing, bio-technology, finance and professional services. The city also has the largest retail sector in North Wales.

In 2007, the then town was ranked fifth in the UK for business start-up success, higher than most larger UK towns and cities.

There are several shopping streets including Hope Street with major retailers such as New Look, TGJones, Waterstones and Claire's, along with Bank Street with many independent small businesses. Plas Coch and Berse retail parks are on the outskirts close to the A483. Central and Island Green retail parks are in the city centre. Eagles Meadow is a shopping and leisure development in the city, and contains branches of major chain stores and an Odeon Cinema; the development is connected to Yorke Street and High Street by a bridge. There are two traditional covered markets (General and Butchers) plus an open-air market on Mondays and further market stalls in Tŷ Pawb.

Wrexham has a Shopmobility service which is free. Much of the Wrexham city centre is pedestrianised.

Wrexham is home to DTCC, which collates and analyses company information for investment banks and financial organisations.

The Wrexham Community & Culture Trust is leading a bid to make Wrexham the UK City of Culture for 2029, building on the city reaching the final four bids of twenty for the 2025 title.

A company of actors (anterliwtwyr) from Wrexham is recorded as appearing in Shrewsbury in Henry VIII's reign.

The then town is referenced in the late-Jacobean Beaumont and Fletcher play, 'The pilgrim' (1647), in which the stock Welshman declares that "Pendragon was a shentleman, marg you, Sir, and the organs at Rixum were made by revelations".

Wrexham hosted the National Eisteddfod in 1888, 1912, 1933, 1977, 2011 and 2025, as well as an unofficial National Eisteddfod event in 1876. The 2025 festival is thought to have attracted over 150,000 visitors and 6,000 competitors to the site on the eastern outskirts of town. Locally-born actor Mark Lewis Jones served as the event's president.

Wrexham has a number of theatres, including the Grove Park Theatre on Hill Street, and the Yale Studio theatre close to Llwyn Isaf, with others at Wrexham University on Mold Road and at Coleg Cambria. There is a multi-screen Odeon cinema in the Eagles Meadow development.

Wrexham University was formed when the North East Wales Institute (NEWI) was granted full university status in 2008. It consists of Plas Coch campus in the western part of the city and the North Wales School of Art and Design located on Regent Street. The institution was founded in 1887 as the Wrexham School of Science and Art. It was formerly named after the 14th century scholar and last Welsh Prince of Wales, Owain Glyndŵr, as (Wrexham) Glyndŵr University.

Yale College (now part of Coleg Cambria) is the main provider of adult education in Wrexham and is one of the largest colleges in Wales. As a tertiary college it also provides a wide range of higher education courses at its two campuses at Grove Park in the city centre and Bersham Road in southwest Wrexham. It was named after Elihu Yale, best known for being the prime benefactor of Yale University. It was founded in 1950 as a state school on a site at Crispin Lane. In 1973, as part of the conversion of local schools to the comprehensive system, it was renamed as Yale Sixth Form College and the pupils re-located to other schools. The Crispin Lane site was incorporated into NEWI (now Glyndŵr University) after the development of the Grove Park Campus.