Mountainous region, administrative county of Cumbria, northwestern England.
Roughly coextensive with Lake District National Park, the country's largest, it occupies an area of 866 sq mi (2,243 sq km). It contains numerous lakes, including Windermere (England's largest), Grasmere, and Coniston Water, as well as England's highest mountains, the loftiest being Scafell Pike, which rises to 3,210 ft (978 m). The district was home to several English poets, including William Wordsworth , Robert Southey , and Samuel Taylor Coleridge , who celebrated its landscape. It became a national park in 1951.