Northumberland National Park is the northernmost national park in England. It covers an area of more than 1030 km² between the Scottish Border in the north to just south of Hadrian's Wall. It is one of the least populated and least visited of the National Parks. The park lies entirely within Northumberland, covering about a quarter of the county.

The park covers several distinct areas. In the north are the Cheviots, a range of hills that mark the border between England and Scotland. Further south, the hills give way to areas of rolling moorland, some of which have been covered by forestry plantations to form Kielder Forest. The southernmost part of the park covers the dramatic central section of Hadrian's Wall.

The 10,000 year history of the region is explored through the many archaeological sites, ranging from prehistoric monuments and Roman remains to Pele towers, constructed as a defence against Border Reivers.

The Park's official symbol is the curlew.

The Northumberland National Park takes its name from the English county of Northumberland. Northumberland means "country north of the River Humber and is related to the name "Northumbria" which refers to the old Anglo-Saxon kingdom which once covered much of Northern England. Since the national park lies totally within the boundaries of Northumberland, that is the name it took.

Northumberland ( /nɔrˈθʌmbərlənd/; abbreviated Northumb. or Northd, the latter being preferred by the Royal Mail) is the northernmost ceremonial county and a unitary district in North East England. It borders Cumbria to the west, County Durham to the south and Tyne and Wear to the south east and the Scottish Borders council area to the north. Its North Sea coastline is a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty with a 64 mile (103 km) long distance path. Since 1981, the county council has been located in Morpeth, situated in the east of the county.

The historical boundaries of the county of Northumberland included Newcastle upon Tyne, the traditional county town, as well as Tynemouth and other settlements in North Tyneside, all areas transferred to Tyne and Wear in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972. The historical county boundaries are sometimes taken to exclude Islandshire, Bedlingtonshire and Norhamshire (collectively North Durham), exclaves of County Durham which were incorporated into Northumberland in 1844. For Eurostat purposes Northumberland is a NUTS 3 region (code UKC21) and is one of three local authority areas that comprise the "Northumberland and Tyne and Wear" NUTS 2 region.

A national park is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or owns. Although individual nations designate their own national parks differently (for example, see Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial in the United States), an international organization, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and its World Commission on Protected Areas, has defined National Parks as its category II type of protected areas. While ideas for this type of national park had been suggested previously, the United States established the first such one, Yellowstone National Park, in 1872. The largest national park in the world meeting the IUCN definition is the Northeast Greenland National Park, which was established in 1974. According to the IUCN, there were 6,555 national parks worldwide in 2006 that meet its criteria.

In 1969 the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) declared a national park to be a relatively large area with particular defining characteristics. A national park was deemed to be a place

Guy Thomas Opperman (born 18 May 1965) is a British Conservative Party politician, who was elected at the 2010 general election as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Hexham.

Opperman was educated at Harrow School and has an honours degree in law from the University of Buckingham and a first class diploma from the University of Lille, France.

Opperman was called to the Bar in 1989 and practised as a barrister from 3 Paper Buildings (3PB) Barristers' Chambers. While a barrister at 3PB, he won the 2007 Bar Pro Bono Award for his many years of work with the Western Circuit Free Representation Unit and the Bar Pro Bono Unit, assisting people who were unable to pay for legal representation. He was named "The Times" Lawyer of the Week on 13 November 2007. He is now a "door tenant" at 3PB and is no longer in active practice at the Bar.

Opperman previously stood for election to Parliament in Swindon North in 1997 and for Caernarfon in 2005. He was a Councillor in Kennet from 1995 to 1999.

Opperman rides an amateur jockey, and was also a member of the English Barristers' team at the First and Second Lawyers Cricket World Cups in Hyderabad, India in 2007 and in Cambridge, England, in 2009.