Audruicq (; vls, Ouderwijk, lang) is a commune in the

Pas-de-Calais Pas-de-Calais (, " strait of Calais"; pcd, Pas-Calés; also nl, Nauw van Kales) is a department in northern France named after the French designation of the Strait of Dover, which it borders. It has the most communes of all the departments ...

department Department may refer to: * Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility Government and military *Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...

in northern France.INSEE commune file
/ref>

Geography

A town located 11 miles (18 km) southeast of

Calais Calais ( , , traditionally , ) is a port city in the Pas-de-Calais department, of which it is a subprefecture. Although Calais is by far the largest city in Pas-de-Calais, the department's prefecture is its third-largest city of Arras. Th ...

, at the junction of the D224 with the D309 road.

History

Baldwin II, Count of Flanders named it a city in 1175, rebuilding the castle and converting the surrounding marshland to tillable soil. After continuously changing authority between the 13th century and the 17th century, Audruicq finally became a French town after the Peace of Nijmegen in 1678.

Population

Sights

* The eighteenth-century church of St. Martin. * The eighteenth-century château.

Personalities

* Gilbert Brazy: Born at Audruicq on 15 February 1902. A pilot, he disappeared, flying a "Latham47" in the Arctic in 1928 with Roald Amundsen.1

International relations