Bowness-on-Windermere (pronounced Bow.ness-on-Wind.eh.mirror) is built on hilly terrain on the shores of the Windermere lake in Cumbria; while it has now grown together with the town of Windermere (which, confusingly, does not actually touch the lake), the two still have distinguishable central business areas.

Windermere station offers train and bus connections to the surrounding area, Manchester, Manchester Airport, and the West Coast Main Line, and is about a fifteen-minute walk from the lakefront; both Stagecoach and the local council provide frequent connecting buses from Bowness Pier (Stagecoach's runs through the centre of town and continues to Ambleside and Grasmere, while the council's runs around the edge of town).

Bowness is home to the Windermere Steamboats & Museum [1], and appears in Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons books (where it is given the name 'Rio').

For other towns with the same or similar names, see Bowness.