The Welsh town of Monmouth has embraced 2D barcodes.

(Sorry, that’s a weak opener—let’s try it again.)

Monmouth and QR codes were seen jumping the broom late last week.

The historic Welsh town (birthplace of King Henry V) now boasts more than 1,000 QR codes in its museums, historical sites and, according to the Daily Mail, even in pubs. When visitors scan the QR codes with a smartphone, they’re directed to applicable Wikipedia articles (available in 26 different languages).

And don’t worry about racking up data roaming charges on your phone—part of this six-month-long project involved installation of free Wi-Fi townwide.

This is still an early form of 2D barcodes for this type of usage. And honestly, as exciting as it sounds QR codes should be bypassed soon. Why? As long as the town has decent, free Wi-Fi, it can ditch the code scanning and develop a location-based augmented reality platform which could allow users to leave their own digital graffiti (or valuable historical data) in more dynamic forms—floating art and 3D renderings twisting before your eyes. That said, the AR option I just ranted about would cost significantly more to set up…and maybe it would be finished just in time to look antiquated.

Image (CC) throwthedamnthing