Lake District are no high summits in this area which is mainly low hills, knolls and limestone cuestas such as Gummer's How and Whitbarrow. Indeed, it rises only as high as at Top o' Selside east of Coniston Water; the wide expanse of Grizedale Forest stands between the two lakes. Kendal and Morecambe Bay stand at the eastern and southern edges of the area. Only one of the lakes in the Lake District is called by that name, Bassenthwaite Lake. All the others such as Windermere, Coniston Water, Ullswater and Buttermere are meres, tarns and waters, with "mere" being the least common
Lake District west and nearly from north to south, with areas such as the Lake District Peninsulas to the south lying outside the National Park. The Lake District is one of the most highly populated national parks. There are, however, only a handful of major settlements within this mountainous area, the towns of Keswick, Windermere, Ambleside, and Bowness-on-Windermere being the four largest. Significant towns immediately outside the boundary of the national park include Millom, Barrow-in-Furness, Kendal, Ulverston, Dalton-in-Furness, Cockermouth, Penrith, and Grange-over-Sands; each of these has important economic links with the area. Villages such as Coniston, Threlkeld, Glenridding, Pooley Bridge, Broughton-in-Furness, Grasmere,