Downland, chalkland, chalk downs or just downs are areas of open chalk hills, such as the North Downs. This term is used to describe the characteristic landscape in southern England where chalk is exposed at the surface. The name "downs" is derived from the Old English word dun, meaning "hill".
Devil's Dyke, a dry valley in the South Downs
Beachy Head cliffs and Belle Tout Lighthouse
Galium verum (L.) Lady's Bedstraw, a typical English chalk downland plant
Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. Chalk is common throughout Western Europe, where deposits underlie parts of France, and steep cliffs are often seen where they meet the sea in places such as the Dover cliffs on the Kent coast of the English Channel.
Beachy Head is a part of the extensive Southern England Chalk Formation.
"Nitzana Chalk curves" situated at Western Negev, Israel, are chalk deposits formed in the Mesozoic era's Tethys Ocean
Open chalk pit, Seale, Surrey, UK
Chalk from the White Cliffs of Dover, England