It runs south 30 kilometres almost to Camiers, a village north of Le Touquet, a nonetheless low-rise, but estuarine conglomeration of housing and holiday parks, as the Boulonnais includes Dannes and its golf courses.
It is a well-wooded zone almost entirely within the Caps et Marais d'Opale Regional Natural Park and is the east end of the Weald-Artois Anticline.
The beach and west side of the town's (or viewed more locally, Outreau's) built-up area is mainly Le Portel which has many of its own amenities, its own commune so mayoralty since 1856 and during the Second World War, on 8 and 9 September 1943, it was hit as part of Operation Cockade.
On 12 August 1944, the leader of all Free French Forces and incoming elected president, Charles de Gaulle, was at Le Portel for its liberation.
Château Mollack in Marquise, among those the English burnt in the raid of Boulogne in 1544 (its precursors dating to 1067) and rebuilt later that century in which form it remains, hosts in October–November a range of theatrical performances.