Lowland Britain offers a striking contrast in many ways. Though so much less rugged, there are few parts where level land is uninterrupted by hills. One of the most extensive plains in the British Isles is in the English Midlands, consisting of river valleys and plains interspersed with scattered hills. It is the Midland Plain, which is best described as an undulating lowland rarely rising above 100 metres. To the north of it are the Pennines, to the south the Thames Basin, to the east East Anglia and to the west the Welsh Borderlands.

Another important plain in Britain is the London Basin in South East England. The master stream of the basin is Britain’s second longest river, the Thames, which enters the region from the west. The Hampshire Basin includes a wide plain area of central southern England.

The geographical region described as the Lancashire and Cheshire Plain, includes the lowlands to the west of the Central and Southern Pennines. The Lowlands themselves are linked to the Midland Plain by a broad gap between the Welsh mountains and the Pennines, known as the Midland Gate. In Yorkshire, along the eastern edge of the Pennines lies the extensive Yorkshire Lowland.

The chief characteristic of East Anglia is its low relief with few hills, the area is mainly founded on chalk.