The
South Downs National Park is
England's newest
National Park, having become fully operational on 1 April 2011. The park, covering an area of in southern
England, stretches for from Winchester in the west to Eastbourne in the east through the counties of
Hampshire,
West Sussex and
East Sussex. The national park covers the chalk hills of the
South Downs (which on the English Channel coast form the white cliffs of the
Seven Sisters and
Beachy Head) and a substantial part of a separate physiographic region, the
western Weald, with its heavily wooded sandstone and clay hills and vales. The
South Downs Way spans the entire length of the park and is the only
National Trail that lies wholly within a national park.