Morecambe Bay, Cardigan Bay, and the Bristol Channel; those on the south are less prominent, though including some useful harbours. The greater part of the coast consists of cliffs, in some places clayey, in others rocky, and sometimes jutting out, as at Whitby and Flamborough Head on the east, Beachy Head, the Isle of Portland, the Lizard and Land's End on the south and south-west, St. David's Head and St. Bees Head on the west, into bold, lofty, and precipitous headlands. The most extensive stretches of flat coast are on the east, in the county of Lincoln, and from the southern part of Suffolk to the South Foreland in Kent, and in Sussex and Hants on the south coast. The chief islands are: Holy Island, the Farne Islands, Sheppey, and Thanet on the east coast; the Isle of Wight on the south; the Scilly Isles at the south-west extremity; and Lundy Island, Anglesey, Holy Island, and Walney on the west.
The loftiest heights of England and Wales are situated at no great distance from its western shores, and consist not so much of a continuous chain as of a succession of mountains and hills stretching, with some interruptions, from north to south, and throwing out numerous branches on both sides, but particularly to the west, where all the culminating summits are found. The northern portion of this range has received the name of the Pennine chain. It is properly a continuation of the Cheviot Hills, and, commencing at the Scottish border, proceeds south for about 270 miles till, in the counties of Derby and Stafford, it assumes the form of an elevated moorland plateau. In Derbyshire The Peak rises to the height of 2080 feet. By far the most important of its offsets are those of the west, more especially if we include in them the lofty mountain masses in North-Western England sometimes classed separately as the Cumbrian range. Amidst these mountains lie the celebrated English lakes, of which the most important are Windermere, Derwent Water, Coniston Lake, and Ullswater. Here also is the highest summit of Northern England, Scawfell (3210 feet). The Pennine chain, with its appended Cumbrian range, is succeeded by one which surpasses both these in loftiness and extent, but has its great nucleus much farther to the west, where it covers the greater part of Wales, deriving from this its name, the Cambrian range. Its principal ridge stretches through Carnarvonshire from N.N.E to S.S.W., with Snowdon (3571 feet) as the culminating point of South Britain. Across the Bristol Channel from Wales is the Devonian range. It may be considered as commencing in the Mendip Hills of Somerset, and then pursuing a south-westerly direction through that county and the counties of Devon and Cornwall to the Land's End, the wild and desolate tract of Dartmoor
forming one of its most remarkable features (highest summit, Yes Tor, 2050 feet). Other ranges are the Cotswold Hills proceeding in a north-easterly direction from near the Mendip Hills; the Chiltern Hills taking a similar direction farther to the east; and the North and South Downs running eastward, the latter reaching the south coast near Beachy Head, the former reaching the south-east coast at Folkestone.
| Area in Statute Acres, 1921 (Land and Inland Water). Counties, including County Boroughs, | Census Population. Counties, including County Boroughs, 1911. | Census Population. Counties, including County Boroughs, 1921. | |
| England. | |||
| Bedfordshire | 302,942 | 194,588 | 206,478 |
| Berkshire | 463,830 | 280,794 | 294,807 |
| Buckinghamshire | 479,360 | 219,551 | 236,209 |
| Cambridgeshire | 315,168 | 128,322 | 129,594 |
| Isle of Ely | 238,073 | 69,752 | 73,778 |
| Cheshire | 657,950 | 954,779 | 1,025,423 |
| Cornwall | 868,167 | 328,098 | 320,559 |
| Cumberland | 973,086 | 265,746 | 273,037 |
| Derbyshire | 650,369 | 683,423 | 714,539 |
| Devonshire | 1,671,364 | 699,703 | 709,488 |
| Dorsetshire | 625,612 | 223,266 | 228,258 |
| Durham | 649,244 | 1,369,860 | 1,478,506 |
| Essex | 979,532 | 1,350,881 | 1,468,341 |
| Gloucestershire | 805,842 | 736,097 | 757,668 |
| Herefordshire | 538,924 | 114,269 | 113,118 |
| Hertfordshire | 404,523 | 311,284 | 333,236 |
| Huntingdonshire | 233,985 | 55,577 | 54,748 |
| Kent | 975,965 | 1,045,591 | 1,141,867 |
| Lancashire | 1,194,555 | 4,767,832 | 4,928,359 |
| Leicestershire | 532,779 | 476,553 | 494,522 |
| Lincolnshire | |||
| The parts of Holland | 263,355 | 82,849 | 85,225 |
| The parts of Kesteven | 469,142 | 111,324 | 108,237 |
| The parts of Lindsey | 972,796 | 369,787 | 408,643 |
| London | 74,850 | 4,521,685 | 4,483,249 |
| Middlesex | 148,692 | 1,126,465 | 1,253,164 |
| Monmouthshire | 349,552 | 395,719 | 450,700 |
| Norfolk | 1,315,064 | 499,116 | 504,277 |
| Northamptonshire | 585,148 | 303,797 | 302,430 |
| Soke of Peterborough | 53,464 | 44,718 | 46,954 |
| Northumberland | 1,291,515 | 696,893 | 746,138 |
| Nottinghamshire | 540,123 | 604,098 | 641,134 |
| Oxfordshire | 479,220 | 189,484 | 189,558 |
| Rutlandshire | 97,273 | 20,346 | 18,368 |
| Shropshire | 861,800 | 246,307 | 242,959 |
| Somersetshire | 1,037,594 | 458,025 | 465,682 |
| Southampton | 958,896 | 862,393 | 910,333 |
| Isle of Wight | 94,146 | 88,186 | 94,697 |
| Staffordshire | 741,318 | 1,279,649 | 1,349,225 |
| Suffolk, East | 557,353 | 277,155 | 291,006 |
| Suffolk, West | 390,916 | 116,905 | 108,982 |
| Surrey | 461,833 | 845,578 | 930,377 |
| Sussex, East | 530,555 | 487,070 | 532,206 |
| Sussex, West | 401,916 | 176,308 | 195,795 |
| Warwickshire | 605,275 | 1,247,418 | 1,390,092 |
| Westmoreland | 504,917 | 63,575 | 65,740 |
| Wiltshire | 864,101 | 286,822 | 292,213 |
| Worcestershire | 458,352 | 387,688 | 405,876 |
| Yorkshire, East Riding | 750,115 | 432,759 | 460,717 |
| " North Riding | 1,362,058 | 419,546 | 456,312 |
| " West Riding | 1,773,529 | 3,045,377 | 3,181,654 |
| Totals | 32,559,868 | 34,045,290 | 35,678,530 |
| Wales. | |||
| Anglesey | 176,630 | 50,928 | 51,695 |
| Brecknockshire | 469,281 | 59,287 | 61,257 |
| Cardiganshire | 443,189 | 59,879 | 61,292 |
| Carmarthenshire | 588,472 | 160,406 | 175,069 |
| Carnarvonshire | 366,005 | 125,043 | 131,034 |
| Denbighshire | 426,080 | 144,783 | 154,847 |
| Flintshire | 163,707 | 92,705 | 106,466 |
| Glamorganshire | 520,456 | 1,120,910 | 1,252,701 |
| Merionethshire | 422,372 | 45,565 | 45,450 |
| Montgomeryshire | 510,110 | 53,146 | 51,317 |
| Pembrokeshire | 393,003 | 89,960 | 92,056 |
| Radnorshire | 301,165 | 22,590 | 23,528 |
| Totals, Wales (12 counties) | 4,780,470 | 2,025,202 | 2,206,712 |
| Totals, England and Wales | 37,340,338 | 36,070,492 | 37,885,242 |
A large part of the surface of England consists of wide valleys and plains. Beginning in the north, the first valleys on the east side are those of the Coquet, Tyne, and Tees; on the west the beautiful valley of the Eden, which, at first hemmed in between the Cumbrian range and Pennine chain, gradually widens out into a plain of about 470 sq. miles, with the town of Carlisle in its centre. The most important of the northern plains is the Vale of York, which has an area of nearly 1000 sq. miles. Properly speaking it is still the same plain which stretches, with scarcely a single interruption, across the counties of Lincoln, Suffolk, and Essex, to the mouth of the Thames, and to a considerable distance inland, comprising the Central Plain and the region of the Fens. On the west side of the island, in South Lancashire and Cheshire, is the fertile Cheshire Plain. In Wales there are no extensive plains, the valleys generally having a narrow rugged form favourable to romantic beauty, but not compatible with great fertility. Wales, however, by giving rise to the Severn, can justly claim part in the vale, or series of almost unrivalled vales, along which it pursues its romantic course through the counties of Montgomery, Salop, Worcester, and Gloucester. South-east of the Cotswold Hills is Salisbury Plain, but it is only in name that it can be classed with the other plains and level lands of England, being a large elevated plateau, of an oval shape, with a thin chalky soil only suitable for pasture. In the south-west the only vales deserving of notice are those of Taunton in Somerset and Exeter in Devon. A large portion of the south-east may be regarded as a continuous plain, consisting of what are called the Wealds of Sussex, Surrey, and Kent, between the North and South Downs, and containing an area of about 1000 sq. miles. The south-east angle of this district is occupied by the Romney Marsh, an extensive level tract composed for the most part of a rich marine deposit. Extensive tracts of a similar nature are situated on the east coast, in Yorkshire and Lincoln, where they are washed by the Humber; and in the counties which either border the Wash, or, like Northampton, Bedford, Huntingdon, and Cambridge, send their drainage into it by the Nene and the Ouse. Many of these lands are naturally the richest in the kingdom, but have been utilized only by means of drainage.
England is well supplied with rivers, many of them of great importance to industry and commerce. Most of them carry their waters to the North Sea. If we consider the drainage as a whole, four principal river basins may be distinguished, those of the Thames, Wash, and