'Argelès on Sea'), commonly known as Argelès (Catalan: Argelers [əɾʒəˈles]), is a commune in the Pyrénées-Orientales department in the administrative region of Occitania, France.

Argelès-sur-Mer is on the Côte Vermeille at the foot of the Albères mountain range, close to the Spanish border.

At its peak in March 1939, the camp contained about 100,000 Spaniards, mostly soldiers of the defeated Spanish Republican Army.

[4] During World War II, Argelès-sur-Mer was the location of a concentration camp, where up to 100,000 defeated Spanish Republicans were interned next to a windy beach in abysmal sanitary conditions by the French government after the defeat of the Spanish Republic.

The refugees streamed to the camp from the winter of 1938/39 after the collapse of the Catalan front following the rebel offensive.