Droylsden is a town in Tameside, 4.1 miles (6.6 km) east of Manchester city centre and 2.2 miles (3.5 km) west of Ashton-under-Lyne, with a population at the 2011 Census of 22,689.

Historically in Lancashire, in the mid-19th century Droylsden grew as a mill town on the Ashton canal. Beginning in the early 1930s, Droylsden's population expanded rapidly as it became a housing overflow area for neighbouring Manchester.

Since 1785, the Fairfield area of Droylsden has been home to a Moravian Church.

Droylsden was settled around AD 900. Before Droylsden became a part of Greater Manchester, it was popularly referred to by Mancunians as "The Silly Country". One suggestion as to the source of that nickname is that once a year, some of the townsfolk used to watch an annual carnival by bringing a pig and sitting it on a wall to watch the passing entertainment with them. The Pig on the Wall public house, converted from a farm in 1978, takes its name from that story.

The first machine woven towel in the world - the terry towel - was produced by W. M. Christy and Sons of Fairfield Mills, in Droylsden, in 1851. William Miller Christy's son, Henry Christy, had brought back a looped towel from Turkey in the 1840s, which Christy's managed to copy on an adapted loom. Their Royal Turkish towels became famous, with Queen Victoria having a regular order. The mill closed at the end of the 1980s, and in 1997 Tesco opened a supermarket on the site.

Construction of a marina began in March 2007, and was completed in 2012. The marina has 92 three and four-bedroom houses, and 291 one and two-bedroom apartments as well as waterside offices, restaurants, and shops.