Calais is a major port city in the Pas-de-Calais region of northern France. Calais was known to the Romans as Caletum, and, by the 10th century, it was a Flemish-speaking fishing village on a sandy island surrounded by marshes. The Count of Boulogne fortified Calais in 1224, and it came to be a wealthy port city of the Kingdom of France. In 1346, King Edward III of England besieged Calais during the Hundred Years' War, capturing the city a year later and expelling the native French population, which he replaced with English settlers. Calais and the surrounding lands became known as the "Pale of Calais", which would remain under English control until 1558, when the French retook the city. Calais became the gateway for the tin, lead, cloth, and wool trades under English rule, but it became too expensive to defend, leading to its inevitable loss during the Italian War of 1551-59. From 1596 to 1598, Calais was occupied by Spain during the Franco-Spanish War, but it was returned to France following the Treaty of Vervins in May 1598. As the nearby ports of Boulogne and Dunkirk began to rise and compete, Calais declined, and, from the 19th century onwards, Calais became a significant port of entry for British travellers to Europe; in 1847, Calais had 12,580 residents, many of whom were English. During World War II, Calais was flattened by German dive-bombers during the Siege of Calais, and it was virtually razed to the ground during the war. After the war, there was little rebuilding of the historic city, and most of the buildings were modern ones. From 1999 onwards, Calais became home to an increasingly large number of illegal immigrants and asylum seekers (mostly Sudanese, Afghans, Syrians, Iraqis, Eritreans, and other Africans and Asians) living in the "Calais jungle", which was cleared in 2016 amid a major migrant crisis in Europe. In 2017, Calais had a population of 73,911 people.
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