National Character Areas
England has been divided into areas with similar landscape character, which are called National Character Areas (NCAs); previously known as Joint Character Areas (JCAs).
The 'Character of England Landscape, Wildlife and Cultural Features Map' produced in 2005 (see map below) by The Countryside Agency with support from English Heritage, was an update to a 1996 original. This map subdivides England into 159 NCA providing a picture of the differences in landscape character at the national scale.
Character descriptions for each of the NCAs were produced and published in regional volumes to highlight the influences determining the character of the landscape, for example land cover, buildings and settlements. The descriptions can be downloaded via the links below, each of the regional groupings breaks down into a longer list of NCAs sitting within each of the regional areas.
The NCAs are a widely recognised national spatial framework, used for a range of applications. Examples include the targeting of Natural England's Environmental Stewardship scheme and the Countryside Quality Counts project.
It is important to remember that the boundaries of the NCAs are not precise and that many of the boundaries should be considered as broad zones of transition. NCAs form part of the data gathered for a Landscape Character Assessment (LCA). LCAs provide more detailed descriptions at a local level within NCAs.
Coming soon: new style National Character Area profiles
We are currently re-writing and re-designing all of England’s 159 NCA profiles and aim to publish the first of the new versions from September 2012. The new style profiles will include a much broader range of information to help inform decisions that affect the local environment.
Each new style profile will include:
a detailed description of key landscape features and the most important elements of biodiversity and geodiversity
a summary of the natural benefits or ecosystem services that each NCA supports
a set of statements of environmental opportunity which set out possibilities for future enhancement of the landscape
You can see a preview of the new NCA profile for the Southern Pennines here
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The new style profiles will provide a national framework for the provision of information on the natural environment. Natural England hopes that this information will create awareness of the greater benefits associated with planning conservation initiatives at a landscape scale and encourage broader partnership working.
As a first step to publishing the full set of new NCA profiles we will be issuing Key Facts and Data documents for each NCA from April 2012. Please look out on this website for more news.
National Character Areas map
- North East
- North West
- East Midlands
- East of England
- West Midlands
- South East & London
- South West
- Yorkshire & The Humber
