"Where people choose to live creates the map, but where they live also influences them," says Daniel Dorling, Professor of Human Geography at Sheffield University. "The way people live and their choice of partners is determined by their environment." Even though the vast majority of people in Wales speak English the Welsh language can still be heard everywhere and in the rural heart of North and West Wales it’s often the everyday language used in shops and pubs. Just as the tradition of separate language remains, so do traditional values in love and marriage. Another part of Welsh culture is the separate Church in Wales (different from the Church of England) and a high number of Calvinist Methodist churches. Religious marriages are far more common in Wales than anywhere else in the UK. Only 58 per cent of couples in Wales are married in a civil ceremony compared with the average 68 per cent for England and Wales. "Although it's difficult to link divorce with regions because courts aren't necessarily in areas where people live, Wales has one of the lowest divorce rates in the UK," says Oxford University population expert John Haskey. The percentage of single people in Wales, as elsewhere, is greater among people in their 20s, although the high numbers of single people in their 30s in Wales matches the South East and London. In the 35 to 40 year age brackett, this figure is lower. Although cohabiting in Wales is on a par with the Midlands and East at between 10 and 14 per cent of 20- to 59-year olds, Wales has the second lowest percentage of same-sex cohabiting couples in the UK. So perhaps Little Britain’s Daffyd had a point when he said "I’m the only gay in the village..." The greatest proportion of single people in Wales live in south Wales, near the large cities of Swansea and Cardiff.
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