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Jurassic by name, Triassic by nature...that's the bit of the East Devon coast which is part of the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site.

Because while the Dorset stretch of coast within the heritage site is around 200 million years old, Devon's section is actually older - up to 245 million years old.

In Devon, the so-called Jurassic Coast starts in Exmouth and extends eastwards to the Dorset border. In Dorset, the world heritage site ends at Studland Bay.

A stretch of the Jurassic Coast in Devon

The cliffs were granted World Heritage Status by the United Nations' cultural arm, Unesco, in December 2001.

It means the coastline is right up there alongside the most amazing natural wonders of the world, such as the Grand Canyon, Great Barrier Reef and the Galapagos Islands.

Why? Because this 95-mile stretch of coast is full of evidence of its prehistoric days, with fossils and even dinosaur footprints visible.

The Jurassic Coast is considered the only place in the world which displays unbroken evidence of 185 million years of the earth's history, exposed in layers through the dramatic cliffs.

The fossils are generally found in the Dorset section of the coast, which contains a unique collection of dinosaur remains.

In East Devon, the prehistoric cliffs take in such areas as Exmouth, Budleigh Salterton, Branscombe, Beer and Seaton.

The coast at Beer

The triassic rocks contain clues about the past - for example, there has been a series of desert environments, with sand dunes, salt lakes, lagoons and rivers.

At Budleigh Salterton, the famous Pebble Beds are made of hard quartzite identical to 440 million-year-old rocks found across the English Channel in Brittany.

In the past few thousand years, the pebbles have been falling from the cliffs and now form the beach at Budleigh. These pebbles must not be removed from the beach.

Between Axmouth in Devon and Lyme Regis in Dorset is the Undercliffs National Nature Reserve - a wilderness formed entirely from landslides.

The landslides still occur and people who walk this section must stick to the South West Coast Path - it's a tough but awe-inspiring walk.

In fact, the coast path all along East Devon is well worth a visit - for suggestions of where to go, take a look at our walks section which is linked from this page.