Oxfordshire is situated between the River Thames and the North Wessex Downs to the south, the Cotswolds to the west, the Chilterns to the east and the Midlands to the north, with spurs running south to Henley-on-Thames and north to Banbury.
Oxfordshire remains a very agricultural county, with a lower population than neighbouring counties, which are smaller.
The Cotswolds were primarily designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty for the rare limestone grassland habitats as well as the old growth beech woodlands that typify the area. The area is well known for gentle hillsides (‘wolds’), outstanding countryside with river valleys, water meadows and beech woods, limestone villages, historic market towns which seem to grow out of the landscape and where little has changed for over 300 years.
The familiar beech and bluebell woods of the Chilterns stretch from the Thames at Goring northeast to Hitchin. The rounded hills are part of the chalk ridge which crosses England from Dorset to Yorkshire. The scarp slope, cut by combes and gaps, looks out over the Vale of Aylesbury. The dip slope, is characterised by steep dry valleys, . The heavily wooded character of the Chilterns, based on clay-with-flint deposits, gives way in the north to the open downland of Ivinghoe Beacon and Dunstable Downs.
There are many habitats ranging from chalk grassland and extensive areas of beech woodland. There are many prehistoric traces including the great dyke of Grim’s Ditch and the ancient Ridgeway and Icknield Way. Commercial forestry and agriculture, ranging from small-scale dairying and horticulture to intensive mixed and cereal farming, remains an important part of the economy.
The North Wessex Downs is a landscape of rolling chalk downlands, beech woodland, and dales. The North Wessex Downs, not a traditional name, encompasses various overlapping local names, including the Berkshire Downs, the North Hampshire Downs, the White Horse Hills, the Lambourn Downs, the Marlborough Downs, the Vale of Pewsey and Savernake Forest.The Uffington White Horse, Avebury Stone circle and many other barrows and hill forts are located on the Ridgeway path which runs across the north of the region.
