National Park System, United Kingdom

Early in the nineteenth century, the English romantic poet William Woodsworth was deeply impressed by the rural scenery of the Lake District in England and hailed it as ‘a state property that anyone has the right to appreciate with their eyes and by their heart’. This statement has become a foundation of the philosophy of building and developing national parks. In 1951, the Lake District, Peak District, Dartmoor, and Snowdonia were designated as the first national parks in Britain. The current national park system includes 10 national parks in England, covering 7% of its territory, three in Wales, which account for 20% of its land, and two in Scotland, accounting for 7% of its land. There are no national parks in Northern Ireland. Cairngorms is the largest national park in the United Kingdom, with a total area of 3,800 km². South Downs, the most-visited national park in the United Kingdom, receives nearly 40 million visitors annually. The national parks in the United Kingdom operate...