Deal

Port and resort on the east coast of Kent, southeast England; population (2001) 29,200. Industries include fishing, boatbuilding, and tourism. Julius Caesar is said to have landed at nearby Walmer in 55 BC, and Deal became one of the Cinque Ports (group of ports in southern England, originally five). The castle, built by Henry VIII, houses the town museum.

Deal Castle was one of many fortifications built along the south coast in about 1540, resulting from Henry's fear of invasion by Catholic France after the English Reformation. Together with the castles of Walmer to the south and Sandown to the north (now in ruins), Deal protected the Downs roadstead, an area of safe anchorage between the coast and the hazardous sandbanks known as the Goodwin Sands. Deal castle has a unique circular form, with a central keep surrounded by two rings of six semi-circular bastions.

In the 18th century, Deal gained notoriety as a centre of smuggling.