Dunkirk
Dunkirk Called by the French Dunkerque, this industrial town and seaport is located in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region of northern France. It lies along the Straits of Dover between Calais and the Belgian frontier, and is first mentioned in 1067, when it was called Dunkerk (Flemish: "Church of the Dunes"). The town was besieged six times during the Middle Ages. History Dunkirk played a centuries-long key role in the emergence of modern Europe, and in the process belonged successively to Flanders, Burgundy, Austria, France, England, and Spain. Ceded briefly in the 1650s to Oliver Cromwell, it was bought back permanently from Charles II by Louis XIV in 1662. The town withstood an Anglo-Dutch bombardment in 1694 and an English siege in 1793. During the nineteenth century, improvements to the harbour transformed Dunkirk from a relative backwater into a centre of commercial importance. Most famously, during the Second World War almost half a million Allied troops were evacuated from Dunkirk during May to June 1940. Malo-les-Bains is the town to visit if you are interested in seeing the beaches where this operation took place. Dunkirk today is a major French port with a daily ferry service to Ramsgate and Dover. It is a centre for steel, oil refining, shipbuilding, food processing, and the manufacture of electrical equipment. Among Dunkirk’s chief exports are construction materials, steel products, cement, fruits and vegetables, sugar, fertilizer, and pre-assembled structures. Ferries initially stopped coming to Dunkirk in the late 1990s, following the opening of the channel tunnel. But since the initial depression following this, the town has made a remarkable recovery, and is currently enjoying something of a tourist boom. Visitors are often just passing through, but others come to visit the wartime sites and numerous museums. What to See & Do in Dunkirk