A seaport and famous bathing-place in the North Riding of Yorkshire, 54½ m. NE. of York; is situated at the mouth of the Esk, and looks N. over the German Ocean; it consists of an old fishing town sloping upwards, and a fashionable new town above and behind it, with the ruins of an abbey; Captain Cook was a 'prentice here, and it was in Whitby-built ships, "the best and stoutest bottoms in England," that he circumnavigated the globe.