CALAIS is less than 40km from England - the Channel's shortest crossing - and is by far the busiest French passenger port. The port (and its accompanying petrochemical works) dominates the town; in fact, there's not much else here. In the last war the British destroyed it to prevent it being used as a base for a German invasion, but the French still refer to it as "the most English town in France", an influence that began after the battle of Crécy in 1346, when Edward III seized it for use as a beachhead in the Hundred Years War. It remained in English hands until 1558, when its loss caused Mary Tudor famously to say: "When I am dead and opened, you shall find Calais lying in my heart." The association has been maintained by various Brits across the centuries: Lady Emma Hamilton, Lord Nelson's mistress; Oscar Wilde on his uppers; Nottingham lacemakers who set up business in the early nineteenth century; and, nowadays, nine million British travellers per year, plus another million-odd day-trippers.

Location:
Western Europe, bordering the Bay of Biscay and English Channel,
between Belgium and Spain, southeast of the UK;
bordering the Mediterranean Sea, between Italy and Spain

Geographic coordinates:
46 00 N, 2 00 E

Area:
total: 547,030 sq km
land: 545,630 sq km
water: 1,400 sq km
note: includes only metropolitan France; excludes the overseas
administrative divisions

Area - comparative:
slightly less than twice the size of Colorado

Land boundaries: