DUNKIRK

French Dunkerque, town, seaport, in the Nord dpartement, Nord-Pas-de-Calais rgion, northern France. It lies along the Strait of Dover between Calais and the Belgian frontier, 49 miles (79 km) northwest of Lille by road. First mentioned in 1067 as Dunkerk (Flemish: Church of the Dunes), the town was besieged and sacked six times during the Middle Ages and was in the centre of conflicts between France, Spain, England, and Holland in the 16th and 17th centuries before it was finally recovered by France in 1662. Louis XIV had important fortifications built there to make it a safe base for Jean Bart and other famous French corsairs who pillaged foreign ships. Forced to demolish the fortifications by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, France was not allowed to rebuild them until the late 18th century. During World War II, in MayJune 1940, the British Expeditionary Force and other Allied troops, cut off by the Germans, were evacuated from Dunkirk to England by naval vessels and hundreds of civilian boats. The town was liberated by the U.S. Army in May 1945, but more than three-quarters of its houses were destroyed in the fighting. The town was subsequently rebuilt on a new plan, with the spacious Place Jean Bart in the centre. Near that square is a belfry, 131 feet (40 m) high, that was built in the 15th century and restored after severe damage by fire in 1940. It was originally the western tower of the Gothic Church of Saint-Eloi (damaged in World Wars I and II) but was separated from it by a street in the 18th century. The town museum, also partly destroyed in 1940, has preserved a collection of 17th-century paintings by minor Dutch masters. Dunkirk's great artificial port was largely rebuilt after 1945 and subsequently expanded. There are 8.5 miles (13.5 km) of quays with berths for ships of all sizes, including giant tankers. Well-equipped with modern machinery, the port has four dry docks, two floating docks for repairs, and storehouses for fruit, grain, and refrigerated products. A complex railway and canal network connects the docks with Belgium and with all important points of northern France. Dunkirk ranks as one of the largest French ports in its amount of cargo handled. The port's major imports are fuel oil, coal, phosphates, and minerals. Exports include sugar, cement, and chemical products. There are daily ferry services to Dover, Eng. The first French steel plant separated from the inland coalfields was opened in Dunkirk in the early 1960s. Dunkirk is also an industrial centre that has oil refineries, metallurgical works, and shipbuilding. Pop. (1982) 71,756. city and port, Chautauqua county, western New York, U.S. It lies along Lake Erie, just north of Fredonia and 40 miles (64 km) southwest of Buffalo. First settled about 1805, it was known as Chadwick's Bay but was renamed because of the supposed similarity of its harbour to that of Dunkirk (Dunkerque), France. The opening of the Erie Canal (1825) and the arrival of the Erie Railroad (1851; now part of the Consolidated Rail Corporation) stimulated Dunkirk's growth. It developed commercial fishing, shipped agricultural products (particularly Concord grapes), and acquired diversified industry (now chiefly stainless steel). Dunkirk was the birthplace (1871) of Samuel Hopkins Adams, the noted author-journalist. A lighthouse, built on the shore of Lake Erie in 1875, now houses a museum. Inc. village, 1837; city, 1880. Pop. (1990) city, 13,989; Jamestown-Dunkirk MSA, 141,895; (1998 est.) city, 12,952; (1996 est.) Jamestown-Dunkirk MSA, 140,800.