[15] The national park covers 555 square miles (1,440 km2),[16] including most of the region in Derbyshire and extends into Staffordshire, Cheshire, Greater Manchester and South and West Yorkshire.

The boundaries were drawn to exclude built-up and industrial areas; in particular Buxton and the quarries at the end of the Peak Dale corridor are surrounded on three sides by the park.

[29] The reservoirs of the Upper Derwent Valley were built from the early to mid-20th century to supply drinking water to the East Midlands and South Yorkshire.

[34] Most of the area is over 1,000 feet (300 m) above sea level,[35] in the centre of the country at a latitude of 53°N, bringing relatively high annual rainfall averaging 40.35 inches (1,025 mm) in 1999.

They make up the carboniferous limestone overlying gritstone, and the coal measures that occur only on the margins and infrequent outcrops of igneous rocks, including lavas, tuffs and volcanic vent agglomerates.

Lead rakes, the spoil heaps of ancient mining activity, form another distinctive White Peak habitat, supporting a range of rare metallophyte plants, including spring sandwort (Minuartia verna; also known as leadwort), alpine pennycress (Thlaspi caerulescens) and mountain pansy (Viola lutea).

[53] The Dark Peak heathlands, bogs, gritstone edges and acid grasslands contain relatively few species; heather (Calluna vulgaris), crowberry (Empetrum nigrum), bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus) and hare's-tail cotton grass (Eriophorum vaginatum) dominate the high moors.

[59] The status of the pine marten is unclear, though confirmed sightings have occurred in recent decades in Derbyshire and north Staffordshire[60] and a specimen from an introduced Welsh population[61] was found dead outside the national park on a road between Ripley and Belper in 2018.

The Dark Peak moors still support breeding populations of several upland specialists, such as twite,[63][64] short-eared owl,[63][65] golden plover,[63] dunlin,[66] ring ouzel,[63] northern wheatear[67] and merlin.

[72] The park authorities expressed disappointment at the limited results[73] and the RSPB withdrew from the partnership in January 2018 citing continued efforts by the Moorland Association and National Gamekeepers’ Organisation which together had "frustrated any possibility of progress" on the issue.

Dipper, golden plover, hen harrier, merlin and short-eared owl are local biodiversity action plan priority species.

[59] Fossil records show that the Peak District was once inhabited by an eclectic mix of species, many of them no longer found in Britain, such as alpine swift, demoiselle crane and long-legged buzzard.

[80] Native fish in the Peak District include Atlantic salmon, brown trout, European eel,[59] bullhead, brook lamprey and grayling.

Other invertebrates include the bilberry bumblebee, broad groove-head spider, mole cricket, northern yellow splinter, shining guest ant, violet oil beetle and white-clawed crayfish.

The local authorities and the number of members they appoint are as follows:[90] The Peak has been inhabited from the earliest periods of human activity, as shown by finds of Mesolithic flint artefacts and palaeo-environmental evidence from caves in Dovedale and elsewhere.

[93] Theories on how the name Peak derived cite the Pecsaetan or peaklanders, an Anglo-Saxon tribe inhabiting the central and northern parts of the area from the 6th century CE, when it belonged to the Anglian kingdom of Mercia.

[114] The first long-distance footpath in the United Kingdom was the Pennine Way, which opened in 1965 and starts at the Nags Head Inn, in Grindsbook Booth, part of Edale village.

[122] However, according to a September 2022 report, this sector is a major industry in the "Peak District and Derbyshire, attracting 45 million visitors annually, generating an output of £2.5 billion into the economy and supporting 31,000 jobs.

Other manufacturing includes David Mellor's cutlery factory in Hathersage, Ferodo brake linings in Chapel-en-le-Frith and electronic equipment in Castleton.

A tradition of public access and outdoor recreation grew up in what is a natural hinterland and rural escape for the people of industrial Manchester and Sheffield, and remains a valuable resource in a largely post-industrial economy.

[139] An extensive network of public footpaths and long-distance trails of over 1,800 miles (2,900 km) in total[140] and large open-access areas are available for hillwalking and hiking.

[146] Local authorities run cycle hire centres at Ashbourne, Parsley Hay, Middleton Top, the Upper Derwent Valley and Hulme End.

Journey times fell with the introduction of turnpike roads from 1731,[156] but the ride from Sheffield to Manchester in 1800 still took 16 hours, prompting Samuel Taylor Coleridge to remark that "a tortoise could outgallop us!

[163] The park authority, National Trust and other landowners try to keep the upland landscape accessible for recreation while protecting it from intensive farming, erosion and visitor pressures.

[166] Measures to contain the damage include diversion of the official route of the Pennine Way out of Edale, which now goes via Jacob's Ladder rather than following the Grindsbrook, and surfacing moorland footpaths with expensive natural stone.

[172] The RSPB withdrew support for the scheme in 2018, citing the continued and illegal persecution of raptors by commercial grouse shooting estates, represented within the Initiative by the Moorland Association and National Gamekeepers' Organisation.

[183][184] Snowfield in George Eliot's novel Adam Bede (1859) is thought to be based on Wirksworth, where her uncle managed a mill; Ellastone (as Hayslope) and Ashbourne (as Oakbourne) also feature.

Children's author Alison Uttley (1884–1976) was born at Cromford; her novel A Traveller in Time, set in Dethick, recounts the Babington Plot to free Mary, Queen of Scots, from imprisonment.

[186] Crichton Porteous (1901–1991) set several books in Peak locations; Toad Hole, Lucky Columbell and Broken River take place in the Derwent Valley.

[194] Other writers and poets who lived in or visited the Peak include Samuel Johnson, William Congreve, Anna Seward, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Lord Byron, Thomas Moore, Richard Furness, D. H. Lawrence, Vera Brittain, Richmal Crompton and Nat Gould.