England Guide
Cumbria and the Lakes
The Lake District is England's most hyped scenic area, and for good reasons. Within an area a mere thirty miles across, sixteen major lakes are squeezed between the steeply pitched faces of the country's highest mountains, an almost alpine landscape that's augmented by waterfalls and picturesque stone-built villages packed into the valleys. Most of what people refer to as the Lake District – or simply the Lakes – lies within the Lake District National Park. This, in turn, falls entirely within the northwestern county of Cumbria, formed in 1974 from the historic counties of Cumberland and Westmorland, and the northern part of Lancashire. Consequently Cumbria contains more than just its lakes, stretching south and west to the coast, and north to its county town of Carlisle, a place that bears traces of a pedigree that stretches back beyond the construction of Hadrian's Wall. To the east, Penrith and the Eden Valley separate the lakes from the near wilderness of the northern Pennines.
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