The Pas-de-Calais borders the departments of Nord and Somme and is connected to the English county of Kent via the Channel Tunnel.

[4] Inhabited since prehistoric times, the Pas-de-Calais region was populated in turn by the Celtic Belgae, the Romans, the Germanic Franks and the Alemanni.

Saxon colonization into the region from the fifth to the eighth centuries likely extended the linguistic border somewhat south and west so that by the ninth century most inhabitants north of the line between Béthune and Berck spoke a dialect of Middle Dutch, while the inhabitants to the south spoke Picard, a variety of Romance dialects.

[5] Pas-de-Calais was also the target of Operation Fortitude during World War II, which was an Allied plan to deceive the Germans that the invasion of Europe at D-Day was to occur here, rather than in Normandy.

[6] Pas-de-Calais is in the current region of Hauts-de-France and is surrounded by the departments of Nord and Somme, the English Channel, and the North Sea.

In the second round of the French presidential elections of 2017 Pas-de-Calais was one of only two departments in which the candidate of the Front National, Marine Le Pen, received a majority of the votes cast: 52.06%.