Lake District in Numbers: Fascinating Facts
You might be just curious about the Lake District in numbers. Or you might be looking for some pub quiz answers. Whatever your interest, we have the Lake District in numbers covered for you, in detail.<\/p>
Exploring the Landscape and People
We've been looking at the landscape and the waterscape, the people who live here, the people who come to stay here. And we think you'll be fascinated by what we found.<\/p>
Superlatives
The Lake District is England's largest National Park, covering 2,362 square km. It is home to England's highest mountain, Scafell Pike (978m), and also to England's deepest lake, Wastwater, 74m. And of course, it's home to our lovely Windermere, the largest lake in England, 14.8 square km, and 18k long.<\/p>
A Lot of Water
There are 16 main 'lakes' but only one is officially called a lake, Bassenthwaite Lake; the others are 'meres' or 'waters'. During Storm Desmond in 2015, some 341.4 mm of rain fell in 24 hours at Honister Pass, which is an English record. The Lake District contains 767.8 km of lakes, meres and tarns, the greatest concentration of inland waters in the UK. The Lake District National Park provides 40% of the drinking water for the North West of England every day of the year, that's 750 million litres. But it's not just lakes. We also have seaside, with 26 miles of coastline.<\/p>
Land Ahoy!
On the land, the Lake District contains 16,702 archaeological sites, and more than 150,000 hectares of farmland. Around 130,000 hectares of land are in agri-environment schemes, and there's 29,792 hectares of woodland. It's pretty special too. We have 42,910 hectares of designated SSSI, Sites of Special Scientific Interest. It's land you can walk across, of course, with 126,649 hectares of open access land (53.6% of the Lake District) and 2,223 kilometres of public footpaths, and 925 kilometres of public bridleways.<\/p>
Home Sweet Home
There are just four towns within the Lake District: Keswick, Ambleside, Windermere (though this is often referred to as a village), and Bowness-on-Windermere, and 21 designated villages. There's also a number of other popular towns just outside the national park, including Kendal, Cockermouth and Penrith. The last time the authorities did a head count, they found that 40,478 people live in the Lake District, in 24,511 dwellings spread across 80 parishes. That makes a population density of 17.1 people per square kilometre, so it's certainly not overcrowded.<\/p>
Visitors Welcome
Tourists from all over the world visit the Lake District National Park for its spectacular scenery, wildlife, history and culture. Tourism is vital to the economy of the area, providing employment and supporting services in local communities. Including our fabulous Cedar Manor, there are more than 4000 hotels in the Lakes, and in Bowness and Windermere alone, there's around 50 cafes, bars and restaurants. The latest figures show that there were 18.14 million tourists visiting the Lake District (2022) and there were 29.15 million tourist days (that is, people who spent more than three hours here.) Revenue from tourism is a massive £2164 million (£2.164 billion).<\/p>
Golden Oldie
The oldest pub in the Lake District, The Hole in t' Wall, is not far from us, just down the road in Bowness. It's been serving pints since 1612, and the poet William Wordsworth is said to have been a regular visitor!<\/p>