With a total area of 2550 square miles, the department has 1899 square miles (more than two-thirds) of arable land, while woods and pasture land each occupy only about a twentieth. The live stock in 1880 comprised 76,224 horses, 9642 asses or mules, 156,060 cows, 35,272 calves, 5080 bulls or oxen, 256,031 sheep, 131,722 pigs, 26,760 goats. The sheep in 1880 yielded 857 tons of wool, worth £57,398. The national sheepfolds of Tingry are in Pas de Calais. The 22,260 beehives of the department yielded in 1878 1753 tons of honey and 39⅜ tons of wax. No department except Somme breeds fowls so extensively. Wheat, beetroot, and oil seeds are the principal crops. In 1882 wheat gave 9,855,483 bushels, meslin 920,023 bushels; in 1879, rye 781,150 bushels, barley 2,362,133 bushels, oats 9,421,818 bushels, beetroot 1,576,355 tons (almost entirely consumed by the sugar works), potatoes 7,250,813 bushels, vegetables 581,727, and colza seed 30,263. Besides there were considerable quantities of poppy-seed, flax (of excellent quality), hops, hemp, and tobacco (1275 tons). There are two great coalfields, that of Pas de Calais proper, a continuation of the coal-field of Valenciennes and Hainault, and that of Boulonnais. The former contains a total area of 134,270 acres; the latter is about a tenth of that size. Taken together they number 72 pits, 57 of which are active. In 1882 5,036,455 tons of coal were extracted and 1,378,818 consumed in the department; the industry gives employment to 22,925 persons. Peat (to the amount of 375,034 tons in 1882) is obtained in the valleys of the Scarpe and the Aa. Iron-mines in the arrondissement of Boulogne employ 162 workmen (26,674 tons); the stone and marble quarries 2130 workmen; and about 800 are engaged in obtaining phosphates of lime (295,566 tons), which are exported for manure. Blast furnaces, foundries, engineering works, naileries, boiler-works, agricultural implement factories, and steelpen works are all carried on in the department. In 1883 305 tons of iron, 16,355 tons of steel, 65,025 tons of cast iron were manufactured; and the average production of pens is 400,000,000 per annum. The establishments at Biache St Vaast melt, refine, and roll copper and zinc, and also work lead and auriferous silver. The shipyards do not launch any large vessels, but in 1881 they built eighty luggers or sloops, with an aggregate burden of 2456 tons. The eighty-nine sugar-works in 1880 produced 42,121 tons of sugar and 29,730 of molasses; the distilleries 4,658,984 gallons of spirits; the oil works 15 tons of hempseed oil, 389 tons of linseed oil, 3066 tons of poppyseed, rapeseed, and cameline oil, &c., and 797 tons of colza oil. There are 553 breweries in the department. Cotton-spinning and weaving employ 116,364 spindles and 625 looms; woolspinning 26,300 spindles; and the flax, hemp, and jute manufacture 35,700 spindles and 497 looms. St Pierre-lès-Calais carries on the weaving of tulles in linen, cotton, and silk, employing 10,000 hands, and producing with its 1506 looms goods to the value of £2,400,0 0 per annum. There are besides in the department establishments for the manufacture of paper and cardboard, hosiery, embroidery, boots and shoes (for exportation), flooring, pipes, glass wares, chemical products, pottery, chicory, starch, biscuits (300 to 400 workmen), and gin. The national powder-mills of Esquerdes are among the largest in France. The port towns fit out a considerable number of vessels for the mackerel, cod, and herring fishing—a growing industry. In 1882 Boulogne and Etaples had 340 boats (13,919 tons) and 4586 fishermen, and Calais 37 boats (265 tons) and 281 fishermen, and their united take was 2356 tons. There is a large export of sugar, spirits, calves, sheep, and eggs to England. In 1882 the port of Boulogne had a movement of 3614 vessels and that of Calais 4436, with a total burden for the two ports of 2,212,920 tons. In 1878 404,769 travellers passed by this way between France and England. Calais is emphatically a transit port; Boulogne has besides an export trade in local products such as marble, freestone, minerals, and Boulogne horses, remarkable for size and strength. The roads of the department (national, departmental, &c. ) make a length of 9393 miles, the waterways 105⅜ miles, the railways 546 miles, and the industrial railways 60 miles. The canal system comprises part of the Aa, the Lys, the Scarpe, the Deule (a tributary of the Lys passing by Lille), the Lawe (a tributary of the Lys passing by Bethune), and the Sensée (an affluent of the Scheldt), as well as the various canals proper from Aire to La Bassée, Neuffossé, Calais, &c., and in this way a line of communication is formed from the Scheldt to the sea by Bethune, St Omer, and Calais, with branches to Gravelines and Dunkirk in Nord. The total tonnage of the whole inland navigation was 2,124,442 tons in 1878.

In 1881 Pas de Calais had 819,022 inhabitants (311 per square mile), ranking sixth among the departments in density of population. It forms the diocese of Arras in the archbishopric of Cambrai, belongs to the district of the first (or Lille) corps d’armée, and is within the jurisdiction of the Douai court of appeal. There are six arrondissements bearing the names of their chief towns— Arras (27,041 inhabitants), Bethune (10,374), Boulogne (44,842), Montreuil (3352), St Omer (20,479), and St Pol (3694). Other places of importance are St Pierre-lès-Calais (30,786 inhabitants), the industrial town of Calais (13,529), Lens (10,515), Lievin (8281), Carvin (6430)—the last three with important coal-mines, and Aire (5000), formerly a fortified place.