Étaples is a commune and the chief town of a canton, in the arrondissement of Montreuil-sur-Mer, in the Pas-de-Calais département of northern France. It is a fishing and leisure port on the Canche river. The commune (in French: commune, word appeared in the 12th century, from Medieval Latin communia, gathering of people sharing a common life, from Latin communis, things held in common) is the lowest level of administrative division in the French Republic. ... The canton is an administrative division of France. ... An arrondissement is an administrative division in some francophone countries: France Paris Main article: Arrondissements of Paris The city of Paris, in France is divided into 20 arrondissements. ... Montreuil-sur-Mer (officially Montreuil) is a sub-prefecture of northern France, in the département of Pas-de-Calais. ... Pas-de-Calais is a département in northern France named after the strait which it borders. ... The départements (or departments) are administrative units of France, roughly analogous to British counties and are now grouped into 22 metropolitan and four overseas régions. ...

Population (1999): 11,316 inhabitants for the city and 19,061 inhabitants for the canton. 1999 is a common year starting on Friday of the Common Era, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ...

It takes its name from having been a medieval staple port. As a port it was part of the administrative and economic complex centred on Montreuil after access from the sea to that town was restricted by silting. In turn, both words, staple and Étaples derive from the French étape, stage. The concept was originally one of a staging post. Staple has several meanings: a staple is a formed metal fastener used to secure sheets of material or wires a foodstuff that forms the basic constituent of a diet is a Staple food staple is the raw material, or its length and quality, of fibre from which textiles are made...

During the period of The Great War Étaples was the principal depôt and transit camp for the British Expeditionary Force, the Birtish army in France. In 1918, it was from a British viewpoint, at the centre of the influenza pandemic. Ypres, 1917, in the vicinity of the Battle of Passchendaele. ... The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) was the British army sent to Belgium in World War I and British Forces in Europe from 1939 - 1940 during World War II. The BEF was established by Secretary of State for War Richard Haldane following the Boer War in case Britain ever needed to... The Spanish Flu Pandemic, also known as the Great Influenza Pandemic, the 1918 Flu Epidemic, and La Grippe, was an unusually severe and deadly strain of influenza, a viral infectious disease, that killed some 25 million to 50 million people world-wide in 1918 and 1919. ... This article is about outbreaks of disease. ...

External links

• http://www.etaples-sur-mer.com
• http://www.tourisme.fr/office-de-tourisme/etaples-sur-mer.htm