Dieppe (djɛp; Norman: Dgieppe) is a coastal commune in the Seine-Maritime department, Normandy, northern France.
Dieppe is a seaport on the English Channel at the mouth of the river Arques. A regular ferry service runs to Newhaven in England.
Famous for its scallops, Dieppe also has a popular pebbled beach, a 15th-century castle and the churches of Saint-Jacques and Saint-Remi. The mouth of the river Scie lies at Hautot-sur-Mer, directly to the west of Dieppe.
The inhabitants of the town of Dieppe are called Dieppois (m) and Dieppoise (f) in French.
First recorded as a small fishing settlement in 1030, Dieppe was an important prize fought over during the Hundred Years' War.
Dieppe housed the most advanced French school of cartography in the 16th century. Two of France's best navigators, Michel le Vasseur and his brother Thomas le Vasseur, lived in Dieppe when they were recruited to join the expedition of René Goulaine de Laudonnière which departed Le Havre for Florida on April 20, 1564. The expedition resulted in the construction of Fort Caroline, the first French colony in the New World. Another expedition two years before where Goulaine de Laudonnière was under command of Jean Ribault, a local Huguenot captain, had resulted in the foundation of Charlesfort, now in South Carolina. Dieppe was the premier port of the kingdom in the 17th century.
After King Edward VI died, putting an end to a Protestant country in England on July 6, 1553, John Knox left England to evade the Catholic-fist of Mary I. First, under the permission of his friends, he went back to his home country of Scotland. Then after he stayed in Dieppe for a few months, he continued on his tracks and stayed in Geneva. There he met one of his influences, John Calvin.
On July 23, 1632, 300 colonists heading to New France departed from Dieppe.
At the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, Dieppe lost 3,000 of its Huguenot citizens, who fled abroad.
Dieppe was an important target in wartime; the town was largely destroyed by an Anglo-Dutch naval bombardment in 1694.