• History:

The inhabitants made their living from fishing, hunting and the manufacture of salt produced in various small salt marshes by the sea. The region was under the rule of the monks of the Abbey of Psalmodie
In 1240, Louis IX took an interest in the strategic position that this place represented for his kingdom: access to an independent port for the “crusading expedition”. He wanted access to the Mediterranean Sea. He obtained the town and surrounding land from the monks of the Abbey through an exchange of properties. He also benefited from the gabelle, a tax levied on salt production. He built a road between the marshes and the Carbonnière tower to serve as a watchtower and protect access to the town. He then built the Constance Tower to house his garrison. In 1272, Louis IX’s son and successor ? Philippe le Hardi, ordered the construction of a wall around the town. The work was not completed until 30 years later
It was from here that Louis IX twice left for the Crusades: the Seventh Crusade in 1248 and the Eighth Crusade in 1270 to Tunis, where he is said to have died of the plague 
For many historians, 1270 wrongly represents the final stage in a process that began at the end of the eleventh century. This is a hasty assessment, as the transfer of crusaders and mercenaries from the port of Aigues-Mortes continued. The order given in 1275 to the knight Guillaume de Roussillon by Philip III the Bold and Pope Gregory X after the Council of Lyon in 1274, by way of reinforcement for Saint-Jean d’Acre in the East, shows that maritime activity was still continuing there with a view to a ninth crusade, which never took place (order of Guillaume de Roussillon in 1275) – (Roger La Noblesse de France at the Crusades p 158; C. Rollat L’Affaire Guillaume de Roussillon in the Templar Tragedy of Pilat at Aigues Mortes 1274/1312). From this historical fact (of 1270) stems the popular belief that the sea reached Aigues-Mortes at that time. In fact, as confirmed by the studies of the engineer Charles Léon Dombre, the entire port of Aigues-Mortes comprised the port itself, which was located in the Marette pond, the Canal-Viel and the Grau-Louis, the Canal-Viel being the access channel to the sea. Today, La Grande-Motte is built approximately on the Grau-Louis
During the French Revolution, the town was called Port-Pelletier.
On 16 August 1893, it was the scene of a dispute between Italian and French workers at the Peccais salt works, which degenerated into eight or nine deaths, between 49 and one hundred