Wigton is a market town in the Cumberland district of Cumbria, England. It lies just outside the Lake District. Wigton is at the centre of the Solway Plain, between the Caldbeck Fells and the Solway coast. It is served by Wigton railway station on the Cumbrian Coast Line, and the A596 road to Workington. The town of Silloth-on-Solway lies 12 miles (19 km) to the west, beyond Abbeytown.

Wigton is "Wicga's tūn". "Wicga" is an Old English pre-7th-century personal name meaning "a beetle" (as in "earwig"), while "tūn" is Old English for a demarcated plot, a "homestead" or "village", so Wigton is "the hamlet belonging to Wicga".

Wigton lies on the River Wampool and Wiza Beck (beck being a dialect word meaning "brook" or "stream" – from the Old Norse bekkr). It is an ancient settlement and evolved from a pre-medieval street plan, which can still be traced today.

The Romans had a cavalry station, Maglona, known locally as Old Carlisle, just to the south of the town with a large vicus (civilian settlement) associated with it. The fort was approximately half-way between Carlisle and the Roman settlement of Derventio (now known as Papcastle), linked by the Roman road that is now the A595. From this location they could react to incursions from north of Hadrian's Wall, using the Roman road to sally east or west before traversing northward across the countryside.

In the period of late antiquity after Roman rule, Wigton was within the native British kingdom of Rheged. Probably of Anglian origin, Wigton was an established settlement in the Kingdom of Northumbria long before the Normans arrived in the area. Wigton and most of then Cumberland were a part of Scotland in 1086 when the Domesday Book was written for William I, so are not included in it.

The Norman invaders created the County of Carlisle (later called Cumberland), building Carlisle Castle in Carlisle in 1092 for its administrative centre. Odard de Logis became William II's Sheriff of Carlisle and was made Baron of Wigton about 1100 AD when it became a Norman barony. Wigton gained its market charter in 1262. The de Logis barons changed their surname to de Wigton around 1208 but the male line of the family died out in 1348, so the manor passed to the Barony of Cockermouth. Although the town's layout is generally Anglian or medieval, its architecture is mainly in the 18th-century Georgian style which remains largely intact.

St Mary's Church dates from 1788, but there was a church on this site from the 12th century.

The population in 1841 was 4,738.