Welsh Tract
The Welsh Tract, also called the Welsh Barony, was a portion of Pennsylvania settled largely by Welsh-speaking Quakers. It covers forty thousand acres to the north-west of Philadelphia. The original settlers negotiated with William Penn in 1684 to constitute the Tract as a separate county whose local government would use the Welsh language, since many of the settlers spoke no English. Notwithstanding this agreement, by the 1690s the land had already been partitioned into different counties, despite appeals from the Welsh settlers, and the Tract never gained self-government.The area is now part of Montgomery, Chester, and Delaware counties. Many towns in the area still bear Welsh names. Some are named after places in Wales. Others, such as Tredyffrin or Uwchlan, have independent Welsh names.
A more successful attempt at setting up a Welsh-speaking colony occurred two centuries later, in the Chubut Valley of Patagonia.