New Forest is a local government district in Hampshire, England. Its council is based in Lyndhurst, although the largest town is Totton. The district also includes the towns of Fordingbridge, Lymington, New Milton and Ringwood. The district is named after and covers most of the New Forest National Park, which occupies much of the central part of the district. The main urban areas are around the periphery of the forest. The district has a coastline onto the Solent to the south and Southampton Water to the east.

The neighbouring districts are Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole, Dorset, Wiltshire, Test Valley, Southampton and Eastleigh (across Southampton Water). The district also faces the Isle of Wight across the Solent.

The district was created on 1 April 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972, covering the whole area of two former districts and most of a third, which were all abolished at the same time:^[2]

• Lymington Municipal Borough
• New Forest Rural District
• Ringwood and Fordingbridge Rural District (except the parishes of Burton and Hurn, which went to Christchurch, and the parish of St Leonards and St Ives, which went to Wimborne)^[3]

The new district was named New Forest after the forest which covers much of the area.^[4]

New Forest is one of the most populous districts in England not to be a unitary authority; at the 2021 census only four non-unitary districts had more people. The Banham Commission had recommended that New Forest should become a unitary authority in 1995, but this was rejected by the government.^[5]

New Forest District Council provides district-level services. County-level services are provided by Hampshire County Council. The whole district is also covered by civil parishes, which form a third tier of local government.^[8]

In the parts of the district within the New Forest National Park, town planning is the responsibility of the New Forest National Park Authority. The district council appoints four of its councillors to serve on the 22-person National Park Authority.^[9]

The whole district is covered by civil parishes. The parish councils for Fordingbridge, Lymington and Pennington, New Milton, Ringwood, and Totton and Eling have declared their parishes to be towns, allowing them to take the style "town council". Whilst Brockenhurst and Lyndhurst are both post towns they have parish councils rather than town councils. The parishes are:^[19][16]