Ceredigion from Cardigan, between five and six thousand leaving the town between 1790 and 1860. Aberystwyth became the main centre for the export of lead and Aberaeron and Newquay did brisk coastal trade. The building of the railway from Shrewsbury in the 1860s encouraged visitors and hotels sprang up in the town to accommodate them. This area of the county of Dyfed became a district of Wales under the name Ceredigion in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972, and since 1996, has formed the county of Ceredigion. According to the 2001 census, Ceredigion has the fourth highest proportion of Welsh
History of the Welsh language speaking Cumbric, and those in the south-west, speaking what would become Cornish, and so the languages diverged. The Book of Aneirin ("Canu Aneirin", c. AD 600) and the Poetry, or Book, of Taliesin ("Canu Taliesin") belong to this era, though both also include some poems originally written in Primitive Welsh. Middle Welsh () is the label attached to the Welsh of the 12th to 14th centuries, of which much more remains than for any earlier period. This is the language of nearly all surviving early manuscripts of the "Mabinogion", although the tales themselves are certainly much older. It is also