DUNKIRK, d0ii'kcrk (Celt., church on the downs), or I)t•NSEIiQUE. A fortified seaport of France, capital of an arrondissenttnt in the Dr partmeut of Nord, on the Strait of Dover, 155 miles north of Paris, and 28 miles northeast of Calais ( \lap: France, .1 1). The town is con nected by railway and canal with the principal manufacturing centres of Belgium and France. it is surrounded by ramparts and ditches, and forms part of an extensive system of fortifiea lions. which inelucles Calais and G ravel ines. The h:n•ho• is ill (lieu It of aeeess :nul shallow, hut the roadstead affords good anchorage. The town is well built, the streets spacious and well pawed, the houses chiefly of brick. Its quay and pier, its Church of Saint Eloi—a Oothie structure of I he sixteenth century, having a handsome though rnther incongruous frontispiece in its more re cent Corinthian portico—its town-hall. barracks, college, and theatre, are the principal archi tectural features. Dunkirk has n tine museum, picture gallery. and public library. There are manufactures of soap. starch, beer. beet-root sugar, cordage, and leather; also metal-foundries, distilleries, sa lt-retinerics, and ship - building yards. Dunkirk ranks fourth among the seaports
of Franco, and its harbor works are on a large scale. The annual value of imports: and exports is about 8150,000,000. its cod and herring fish eries are actively prosecuted. The United States is represented by a consular agent. The imme diate vicinity of Dunkirk has a dreary and tin interesting appearance. Population, in 1901, 38,925.
Dunkirk owes its origin, it is said, to the church built by Saint Eloi in the seventh cen tury in the midst of a waste of sand-hills or dunes, and hence its name, 'Church of the Dunes.' It shared the fortunes of Flanders. coining suc cessively linden Burgundian and Spanish rule. It was burned by the English in 13SS. It was taken from the Spaniards by the French in 1658 and made over to England, but was sold to Louis XIV. by Charles II. in 1662. By the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, the French were compelled to destroy the fortifications of Dunkirk, which were again restored, however, in 1783. Consult DC'rode, Histoirc de Dunkerque (Lille, 1852).