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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.
Population (1999): 11,316 inhabitants for the city and 19,061 inhabitants for the canton.
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.
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.