It’s famed for its rugged coastline, love of leeks and Tom Jones. 

But Wales may also a hotspot for less attractive Brits. 

For one US scientist has controversially suggested uglier people ‘migrate to places like Wales’. 

In more positive news for the English, however, the Southeast ‘attracts the good-looking’ and ‘repels the bad-looking’. 

This is according to Professor Daniel Hamermesh, an expert in pulchronomics — the economics of beauty — at the University of Texas. 

In his study, he analysed data from the 1958 National Child Development study which followed the lives of 17,415 people born in England, Scotland and Wales in a single week of 1958. 

At age seven and again at age 11, teachers of the students born between March 3 and 9, 1958, were asked to rate their attractiveness during the school year on a sliding scale. 

Options included ‘attractive’, ‘unattractive’, ‘normal’ or ‘abnormal feature’.

They did not detail what an objective standard of beauty was.  

In various later waves of the survey, including 1991, 1999, 2004 and 2009 — at ages 33, 41, 46 and 51 —  respondents were also asked questions to assess their happiness and general life satisfaction. 

Writing in the National Bureau of Economic Research, the researchers said:  ‘The Southeast attracted good-looking people, while less good-looking people moved elsewhere in the UK.’

Scotland and Wales were where the least good looking tended to be situated, he discovered.  

Scientists also found the more attractive children were more likely to become economically successful.

Professor Hamermesh also told The Times: ‘During a life we suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. 

‘The outrageous fortune in this case is that some people are born and grow up to be pretty bad-looking.’

Previous studies have uncovered a number of factors that influence your physical beauty.

This includes facial symmetry, flirtatiousness, and confidence. Research has also suggested attractive people earn more.  

The controversial conclusions were made by Professor Daniel Hamermesh, an expert in pulchronomics — the economics of beauty — at the University of Texas 

In his book, Professor Hamermesh estimated that attractive people earned on average about £145,000 more in a lifetime than those with below-average looks.

A beautiful woman would earn four per cent more, and handsome men three per cent more, than their plain counterparts.

Another study, meanwhile, suggested that good-looking men at the age of 40, had a salary boost equivalent to having had five more year’s work experience on average.   

In August, US researchers even found that ‘ugly’ men live nearly a year less on average than those who were considered good looking.

And unattractive women die on average two years early than those who are more blessed in the looks department.   

Attractive politicians are more likely to win, too. 

One German study found variations in attractiveness between candidates accounted for 3 per cent of the vote.