Styled "The Pearl of Dorset", it lies at Lyme Bay on the English Channel coast at the Dorset–Devon border. It is noted for fossils found in cliffs and beaches on the Heritage Coast or Jurassic Coast, a World Heritage Site. The harbour wall – known as "The Cobb" – appears in Jane Austen's novel Persuasion, the John Fowles novel The French Lieutenant's Woman, and the 1981 film of that name, which was partly shot in the town. A former mayor and MP was Admiral Sir George Somers, who founded the English colonial settlement of Somers Isles, now Bermuda, where Lyme Regis is twinned with St George's. In July 2015, Lyme Regis also joined Jamestown, Virginia, in a Historic Atlantic Triangle with St George's. The 2011 Census gave the parish and electoral ward a population of 3,671.
The coastal exposures provide a continuous sequence of Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous rock formations, spanning approximately 185 million years of the Earth's history.
