Wissant (French pronunciation: [ɥisɑ̃];[3] from Dutch: Witzand, “white sand”)[4] is a seaside commune in the Pas-de-Calais department within the Hauts-de-France area of France[5] roughly 18 kilometres (eleven mi) north of Boulogne, sixteen kilometres (9.9 mi) west-southwest of Calais on the English Channel coast.

Historical past
[edit]
Positioned at the japanese end of a lagoon formed by a storm-breach of the coastal dunes, probably in the mid-tenth century,[6] Wissant has been a fishing village for a millennium: along with Audresselles it’s the final fishing village in France to make use of a conventional methodology of fishing using a wooden boat called a flobart and was in the Middle Ages a major port for embarkation for England:[7] In a mid-11th century Life of St. Vulganius, Wissant was specified, probably anachronistically, because the pure disembarkation level for the early eighth-century Celtic saint in his evangelizing travels. [8] Wissant was the embarkation port of Robert de Beaumont, 3rd Earl of Leicester, for his sick-fated invasion of England in 1173, with an military of 3000 Flemings. [9] Henry III of England was stranded at Wissant for lack of cash. [10] In line with Matthew Paris (mid-13th century) its naucleri habitually interfered with English fishing fleets.

From the seventh to the 14th century, the native language was the West Franconian dialect known as Previous Dutch and the village was known as Witsant and reckoned part of Flanders.

Shifting coastal sands silted up the harbour, at the identical time that Calais was rising in significance as a port in direction of the tip of the twelfth century. On the time of the exploitation of those gravel pits, the bones of an entire mammoth with its tusks have been discovered by 4 workers. At the end of the nineteenth century, the coastal dunes of Wissant began to be covered with seaside villas. The massive excavations now kind lakes and a nature reserve. In the course of the twentieth century, an entrepreneur, M. Létendart from Calais, extracted sand and gravel from the dunes to the west of Wissant, within the bed of the historic lagoon.

In July 1909 Wissant stood on the centre of worldwide focus. Louis Blériot received the prize and worldwide fame, from his camp at Calais. 2 and 18) and was camped at Wissant. [11]. Whereas practising over the dunes he crashed heavily and cancelled his plans. [12] Three contenders for the £1,000 Northcliffe prize supplied by the Every day Mail for the primary heavier-than-air craft to cross the English Channel were camped alongside the coast between Calais and Wissant. The Franco-Russian Comte Charles de Lambert who had two Wright Flyers (Nos.

At the moment, because of the frequent and usually favourable winds and the proximity of the TGV railway station and the Eurostar trains to Fréthun, Parisians call Wissant the “Mecca” of surfing.

Inhabitants
[edit]
The inhabitants are known as Wissantais in French.

Historical inhabitants
12 months Pop. ±% p.a.

1968 1,058 –

1975 1,140 +1.07%

1982 1,247 +1.29%

1990 1,303 +0.55%

1999 1,186 −1.04%

2007 1,046 −1.56%

2012 1,033 −0.25%

2017 939 −1.89%

2023 835 −1.94%

Source: INSEE[13]

Places of interest
[edit]

Le Typhonium, a villa in-built Egyptian style for the artist Adrien Demont and his wife Virginie Demont-Breton,.[14]

SM UC-61, the wreck of a German WWI submarine.

^ “Répertoire nationwide des élus: les maires” (in French). information – phuketisland.com – .gouv.fr, Plateforme ouverte des données publiques françaises. 12 March 2025.

^ “Populations de référence 2023” (in French). National Institute of Statistics and Financial Studies. 18 December 2025.

^ “Noms de lieux et diable de prononciations”. Le Monde.fr. 21 August 2010.

^ Kristien Hemmerechts’ novel Wit Zand (Amsterdam, 1993) is about in Wissant.

^ INSEE commune file

^ Philip Grierson, “The Relations between England and Flanders earlier than the Norman Conquest” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Fourth Collection, 23 [1941:71-112] p. 80f) stated that “Wissant was situated in the parish of Sombres, and within the Itinerary of Archbishop Sigeric (990) the landing-place was still known by the title of the father or mother village (Sumeran) and never by that of the just lately formed harbour; Wissant itself does not appear by title in a contemporary document until the second half of the eleventh century.”

^ For two centuries, it was underneath English rule, as was all of the county of Calais; it has formerly been a candidate rivalling Boulogne for Portus Itius, used by Caesar for his campaign in Britannia.

^ The saint appulit ad portum Witsant appelatum: qui videlicet locus ex albentis sabuli interpretatione tale sortitur vocabulum (quoted in Grierson 1941:80).

^ In the 1173-1174 Struggle; the contemporary source, Ralph de Diceto specifies Wissant.

^ Close rolls of the Reign of henry III, 1259-1261 (HMSO, 1934), noted in review by Eileen Energy in the Financial Historical past Evaluate 5.2 (April 1935:134).

^ Flight Journal, July 24, 1909 p.442

^ Elliot, Brian A. Blériot, Herald of an Age, pp.109-37

^ Population municipale entre 1968 et 2023, INSEE

^ Base Mérimée: Villa Le Typhonium, Ministère français de la Tradition. (in French)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Wissant.

Official Wissant web site (in French)

A Wissant webpage (in French)

The historical past of Wissant (in French)

The CWGC cemetery

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This web page was final edited on 7 Might 2026, at 15:Forty nine (UTC).

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