The Region of Durham is situated in the highly developed and populated economic centre of Ontario, known as the Golden Horseshoe, that stretches from Oshawa to Niagara Falls. Durham Region lies immediately to the east of the City of Toronto within the Greater Toronto Area and encompasses an area of approximately 2,590 square kilometres (1,000 square miles). The area is characterized by a variety of landscapes and communities. A series of major lakeshore urban communities contrast with a variety of small towns, villages, hamlets and farms which lie immediately inland. The relatively flat lakeshore area marked by the bluffs, wooded creeks and ancient shoreline, features contrasts with the hummocky topography of the Oak Ridges Moraine running parallel to the shoreline only 15 miles to the north. This diverse landscape of woods, headwaters, ridges and hollows gives way to rolling farmlands and lakes to the north. Here the Municipality spreads into the prime recreational lakelands of Simcoe, Scugog and the Kawarthas.