Eccles is a town in Greater Manchester, England, and a part of the City of Salford. Eccles is 2.7 miles (4.3 km) west of Salford and 3.7 miles (6.0 km) west of Manchester city centre, split by the M602 motorway and bordered by the Manchester Ship Canal to the south. The town is famous for the Eccles cake.

Within the boundaries of the historic county of Lancashire, Eccles grew around the 13th-century Parish Church of St Mary. Evidence of pre-historic human settlement has been discovered locally, but the area was predominantly agricultural until the Industrial Revolution, when a textile industry was established in the town. The arrival of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, the world's first passenger railway, led to the town's expansion along the route of the track linking those two cities.

The derivation of the name is uncertain, but several ideas have been proposed. One is that the "Eccles" place-name is derived from the Romano-British Ecles or Eglys, itself derived from the Ancient Greek Ecclesia. Following the arrival in AD 613 of the invading Anglo-Saxons at Lancashire, many existing British place-names, especially rivers and hills (the River Irwell for example), survived intact. The root "Ecles", found in several village names, is an exception to this. A popular theory is that the word denoted the site of a building recognised by the Anglo-Saxons as a church and feature of the landscape. Eccles appears to have been such a village, and Ecles may be the likely source of the modern name. In Kenyon's Origins of Lancashire (1991), however, the author suggests that this may not be the case as there is not an exact correlation between "Eccles" place-names and pre-Domesday hundreds in south Lancashire.

The Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin is the only Grade I listed building in Eccles. There are two Grade II* listed buildings in the Eccles area. The Church of St Andrew was completed by the architect Herbert Edward Tijou in 1879. Monton Unitarian Church was completed in 1875 by Thomas Worthington.

The town's war memorial was erected in 1925. Local sculptor John Cassidy was commissioned to design the structure. Built from Portland stone and topped with a bronze figure, it was unveiled by Lord Derby in August 1925. It is now a Grade II listed building.

Eccles Library was built on a slum clearance site in the town centre. The building was funded by Andrew Carnegie and designed by Edward Potts (who also designed the canalside mill picture above), and opened on 19 October 1907. Designed in the Renaissance style, it is now a Grade II listed building. Potts had hoped that the building would become "the Eccles University". The former Lyceum Theatre on Church Street is a Grade II listed building.

Salford City Council is currently bidding for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway to be included in UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites. Eccles railway station has recently undergone restoration work by the 'Friends of Eccles Railway Station', including clean-ups, renovation of the station garden, and a mural.

Both Monton Green and Ellesmere Park are designated conservation areas,[79] and a Site of Biological Importance is located near Rutland Road and Chatsworth Road.