Somerset is a largely rural county famous for its rolling hills and downland, the large flat Somerset Levels, and the Exmoor National Park which straddles the border with Devon.
The town of Glastonbury is famous in mythology. The north of the county is administratively independent and includes the city of Bath, a World Heritage Site famous for its Roman history and Georgian architecture. The popular sea-side resort Weston-Super-Mare lies on the Bristol Channel coast.
Much of the landscape of Somerset falls into two types, determined by the underlying geology. These landscapes are the limestone karst of the north east and the clay vales and wetlands of the south and west. In the north east the Mendip Hills are high, often bare mountain limestone hills with an extensive network of caves and underground rivers and a number of gorges, famously Cheddar Gorge. The main habitat on these hills is calcareous grassland, with some arable agriculture.
To the south of the hills, on the clay substrate, are a number of small valleys which support dairy farming and drain into the Somerset Levels. This expanse of flat land, stretching up to 20 miles inland, is only a few feet above sea level and before it was drained, starting in Saxon times, much of the land was under a shallow brackish sea all year. In the far west of the county, running into Devon, is Exmoor, a high Devonian sandstone moor. The highest point in Somerset is Dunkery Beacon on Exmoor.
Much of the county is scenic and unspoilt. Tourism is a major industry in the county. Attractions include its coastal towns, part of the Exmoor National Park, the West Somerset Railway (a heritage railway), and the museum of the Fleet Air Arm at RNAS Yeovilton. The town of Glastonbury is famous for its mythical associations, and open-air rock festival (actually in Pilton), while the Cheddar Gorge is famous for caves open to visitors, as well as its locally produced cheese.