The west coast is almost entirely urban, containing the towns of Fleetwood, Cleveleys, Blackpool, St Annes and Lytham; with Thornton, Carleton and Poulton-le-Fylde not far inland.
The rest of the Fylde is rural, containing villages that include Freckleton, Warton, Wrea Green, Great Eccleston, Hambleton, Knott End and Pilling.
[2] The Quaternary cover consists of glacial till deriving from the last ice age (Devensian) together with some scattered glaciofluvial deposits, mainly sand and gravel.
Also post-glacial in age are the clays and silts of the broad tidal flats around Fleetwood and the Morecambe Bay coast and the Ribble estuary.
Peat deposits are common in the shallow north–south valley occupied by Main Dyke just east of Blackpool and also forming the mosses in the northeast of the area.