Dorsten (German pronunciation: [ˈdɔʁstən]; Westphalian: Dössen) is a town in the district of Recklinghausen in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany and has a population of about 75,000.

Its historical old town lies on the south bank of the river Lippe and the Wesel–Datteln Canal and was granted city rights in 1251.

While Dorsten's northern districts are thus shaped by the rural Münsterland with its many historical castles, just south of the town the Ruhr region begins, Germany's largest urban agglomeration with more than seven million inhabitants.

The monks founded Gymnasium Petrinum in 1642 and in 1699 the Ursulines set up a cloister including a boarding school for girls.

On 9 February 1633, Hesse-Cassel captured the town of Dorsten without resistance from the Electorate of Cologne and the Vest of Recklinghausen and, in the years that followed, it was turned into the strongest fortress in the region.

Only a few days before the end of the Second World War, the historical old town was almost completely destroyed in an Allied air raid.