Browse by designated landscape

National Landscapes, NSAs and AONBs

Beyond the 15 national parks, 86 more UK landscapes carry a national designation: 38 National Landscapes in England and Wales, 40 National Scenic Areas in Scotland and 8 Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty in Northern Ireland. Each page below lists every hill from our dataset whose summit falls inside the designated boundary — 530 hills in all.

Data compiled by Ryan — sources and method

Three designations, one idea — and none is a national park

In England and Wales, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty are designated for their scenic quality under the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949 and the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000; since November 2023 they have been branded National Landscapes, though AONB remains the legal designation. Unlike a national park, an AONB has no dedicated park authority. Scotland uses a separate designation, the National Scenic Area: all 40 date from 1980–81 and none has been added since. Northern Ireland has no national parks at all — its eight AONBs, designated under the Amenity Lands Act (Northern Ireland) 1965 and the Nature Conservation and Amenity Lands (Northern Ireland) Order 1985, are its main landscape designation. None of the three creates any right of access: the ordinary law of each nation applies — see access rights by country.

England — National Landscapes

England

Chilterns

838 km² · designated 1990

4 listed hills · highest Wendover Woods (267.5 m)

England

Cornwall

964 km² · designated 1959

1 listed hill · highest Brown Willy (420 m)

England

Cotswolds

2,041 km² · designated 1966

2 listed hills · highest Cleeve Hill (330 m)

England

Dorset

1,129 km² · designated 1959

1 listed hill · highest Lewesdon Hill (278.6 m)

England

Forest of Bowland

806 km² · designated 1964

5 listed hills · highest Ward's Stone (562.4 m)

England

Kent Downs

879 km² · designated 1968

1 listed hill · highest Betsom's Hill (251 m)

England

Lincolnshire Wolds

559 km² · designated 1973

1 listed hill · highest Normanby Top (168 m)

England

Malvern Hills

107 km² · designated 1959

1 listed hill · highest Worcestershire Beacon (425.1 m)

England

Nidderdale

601 km² · designated 1994

3 listed hills · highest Little Whernside (605 m)

England

Norfolk Coast

446 km² · designated 1968

1 listed hill · highest Beacon Hill (105.1 m)

England

North Pennines

1,985 km² · designated 1988

58 listed hills · highest Cross Fell (893.1 m)

England

North Wessex Downs

1,731 km² · designated 1972

3 listed hills · highest Walbury Hill (296.8 m)

England

Shropshire Hills

808 km² · designated 1959

5 listed hills · highest Brown Clee Hill (540.5 m)

England

Surrey Hills

422 km² · designated 1958

1 listed hill · highest Leith Hill (294 m)

No hills from our dataset, but every bit as designated:

Wales — National Landscapes

Wales

Clwydian Range and Dee Valley

389 km² · designated 2011

11 listed hills · highest Moel Fferna (630 m)

Wales

Llŷn

160 km² · designated 1957

3 listed hills · highest Yr Eifl (560.7 m)

Wales

Ynys Môn (Anglesey)

219 km² · designated 1967

1 listed hill · highest Holyhead Mountain (220 m)

No hills from our dataset, but every bit as designated:

Gower

Scotland — National Scenic Areas

Scotland

Assynt-Coigach

1,298 km²

18 listed hills · highest Ben More Assynt (998.9 m)

Scotland

Ben Nevis and Glen Coe

926 km²

97 listed hills · highest Ben Nevis (1344.5 m)

Scotland

Deeside and Lochnagar

398 km²

28 listed hills · highest Lochnagar - Cac Carn Beag (1155.7 m)

Scotland

Glen Affric

188 km²

22 listed hills · highest Carn Eighe (1182.8 m)

Scotland

Hoy and West Mainland

244 km²

1 listed hill · highest Ward Hill (481 m)

Scotland

Jura

303 km²

3 listed hills · highest Beinn an Oir (785 m)

Scotland

Kintail

173 km²

21 listed hills · highest Sgurr Fhuaran (1068.8 m)

Scotland

Knoydart

507 km²

25 listed hills · highest Sgurr na Ciche (1040.2 m)

Scotland

Kyle of Tongue

245 km²

2 listed hills · highest Ben Hope (927 m)

Scotland

Loch Lomond

281 km²

3 listed hills · highest Ben Lomond (973.7 m)

Scotland

Loch na Keal, Isle of Mull

443 km²

1 listed hill · highest Ben More (966 m)

Scotland

Loch Rannoch and Glen Lyon

487 km²

27 listed hills · highest Ben Lawers (1214.3 m)

Scotland

Loch Shiel

130 km²

3 listed hills · highest Beinn Odhar Bheag (883.3 m)

Scotland

Loch Tummel

90 km²

1 listed hill · highest Farragon Hill (782.4 m)

Scotland

North Arran

304 km²

5 listed hills · highest Goatfell (875 m)

Scotland

North-West Sutherland

235 km²

4 listed hills · highest Foinaven [Foinne Bhein] - Ganu Mor (911.1 m)

Scotland

River Earn (Comrie to St Fillans)

31 km²

1 listed hill · highest Mor Bheinn (640.3 m)

Scotland

South Lewis, Harris and North Uist

2,021 km²

4 listed hills · highest An Cliseam (800 m)

Scotland

The Cairngorm Mountains

655 km²

51 listed hills · highest Ben Macdui (1309.3 m)

Scotland

The Cuillin Hills

273 km²

28 listed hills · highest Sgurr Alasdair (992 m)

Scotland

The Small Isles

472 km²

3 listed hills · highest Askival (812 m)

Scotland

The Trossachs

49 km²

1 listed hill · highest Ben Venue (729 m)

Scotland

Upper Tweeddale

128 km²

2 listed hills · highest Pykestone Hill (737 m)

Scotland

Wester Ross

1,635 km²

63 listed hills · highest An Teallach - Bidein a' Ghlas Thuill (1062.6 m)

No hills from our dataset, but every bit as designated:

Northern Ireland — AONBs

Northern Ireland

Mourne

580 km² · designated 1986

14 listed hills · highest Slieve Donard (850 m)

Northern Ireland

Ring of Gullion

153 km² · designated 1991

1 listed hill · highest Slieve Gullion (576 m)

No hills from our dataset, but every bit as designated:

What the hill counts mean

The count on each card is the number of summits from our 2,114-hill dataset whose summit point falls inside that designated boundary. Our list is drawn from the established British and Irish hill lists (Munros, Corbetts, Grahams, Donalds, Wainwrights, Hewitts, Nuttalls and county tops), so a landscape shown without hills is one where no summit inside the boundary appears in our dataset — chalk downland, coast and estuary landscapes mostly, and not a judgement on the walking. Boundaries are generalised to roughly 100 m, so a summit right on an edge can fall on the wrong side. To browse hills by survey area instead, use regions; for the national parks, see parks.

Hill data: Database of British & Irish Hills v18.3 (CC BY 4.0). Boundaries, all under the Open Government Licence v3.0: © Natural England copyright; contains Natural Resources Wales information © Natural Resources Wales and database right (via DataMapWales); © Scottish Government (via spatialdata.gov.scot); DAERA (via OpenDataNI). The England, Wales and Scotland boundary datasets contain Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right. Areas and designation years are as published in each source dataset. Access notes are general information, not legal advice.