Ellesmere Port is a port town in the Cheshire West and Chester borough in Cheshire, England. Ellesmere Port is on the south eastern edge of the Wirral Peninsula, six miles north of Chester, on the bank of the Manchester Ship Canal. The town had a population of 61,090 in the 2011 census. Ellesmere Port also forms part of the wider Birkenhead urban area, which had a population of 325,264 in 2011. The town was originally established on the River Mersey at the entrance to the Ellesmere Canal.