West Lancashire

West Lancashire is a local government district with borough status in Lancashire, England. It is located in the south-west of the county and is bordered by Greater Manchester to the east and Merseyside to the south and west. The Lancashire district of Fylde lies the north, over the Ribble Estuary, and South Ribble and Chorley to the east.

The borough has an area of 133.8 square miles (347 km²) and had an estimated population of 121,995 in 2024. It is primarily rural, and the most populous settlements are Ormskirk and Skelmersdale; other settlements include Burscough, Up Holland, and Tarleton. The borough council is based in Ormskirk, and there are twenty-one civil parishes. Employment in the borough is largely in the service sector, with above-average employment in the education sector due to Edge Hill University in Ormskirk. West Lancashire has strong economic links to the Merseyside boroughs of Sefton, St Helens, and Liverpool and the Greater Manchester borough of Wigan.

The west of the borough contains much of the southern part of the Lancashire Plain, a low-lying region of mossland. A large lake called Martin Mere occupied much of the area until it was drained for agriculture. The northern border of the borough is the Ribble Estuary, and both it and the remnant of Martin Mere are Ramsar sites. In the east the land rises to Harrock Hill, Parbold Hill, and Ashurst Hill; the River Douglas flows west through the valley between the last two, then turns north and forms the borough boundary.