The district also includes the towns of Newhaven, Peacehaven and Telscombe and numerous villages and surrounding rural areas.

The district covers an area of 113 sq mi (290 km2), with 9 miles (14.5 km) of coastline.

[8] The whole district is also covered by civil parishes, which form a third tier of local government.

The district council appoints one of its councillors to serve on the 27-person National Park Authority.

[30] The wards, with their populations at the 2021 Census, are: The district straddles the constituencies of Lewes and Brighton Kemptown.

[31] In 2023 the council moved its main offices to Marine Workshops, a former industrial building in Newhaven which it shares with East Sussex Colleges Group.

[35] ‡ St John Without, St Ann Without, Tarring Neville and Southease are separate civil parishes with parish meetings, but due to their small size population statistics are not published separately for them.