GRAVELINES (Fleur. Gravelinghe), a seaport town of northern France, in the department of Nord and arrondissement of Dunkerque, near the mouth of the Aa, 15 m. S.W. of Dunkirk on the railway to Calais. Pop. (1931) 1,826. The canalization of the Aa by a count of Flanders about the middle of the 12th cen tury led to the foundation of Gravelines (grave-linghe, meaning "count's canal") . It finally passed from the Spaniards to the French by the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659. It is fortified by a double circuit of ramparts and by a tidal moat.
The river is canalized and opens out beneath the fortifications into a floating basin. Its trade has suffered owing to the nearness of Calais and Dunkirk and the silting up of the channel to the sea. It is a centre for the cod and herring fisheries. Imports con sist of timber from Northern Europe and coal from England, to which eggs and fruit are exported. Gravelines has paper-manu factories, sugar-works, fish-curing works, salt-refineries, chicory roasting factories, a cannery for preserved peas and vegetables, and an important timber-yard. The greater part of the population of Gravelines dwells in the maritime quarter of Petit-Fort-Philippe at the mouth of the Aa, and in the village of Les Huttes (to the east of the town), which is inhabited by the fisher-folk.