Chronic pancreatitis (CP) is a complex progressive fibro-inflammatory disease of the pancreas with a variable clinical course often progressing to a permanent loss of exocrine and endocrine function. Over the last 20 years the incidence has continued to increase. CP has multifactorial aetiological risk factors with chronic alcoholism being the most common. The updated TIGAR-O_V2 classification identifies the pertinent risk factors and aetiology. The most susceptible patients to develop CP have a sentinel acute pancreatitis event which initiates the chronic progressive inflammation, scarring and fibrosis of the pancreas. Symptomatically CP presents as intractable abdominal pain, with weight loss and functional loss (steatorrhoea and type 3c diabetes mellitus) being late manifestations of the disease. Diagnosis is made by a combination of clinical history, examination and cross sectional imaging, combined with pancreatic function tests (only in equivocal cases). Complications include gastric and biliary obstruction, pseudocyst formation, pancreatic ascites, pseudoaneurysms, venous thrombosis and an increased risk of developing pancreatic adenocarcinoma. Management includes: diagnosis and identifying the aetiology, instituting life-style changes to abstain from alcohol and smoking, and involving the specialist multidisciplinary team (including pain team, dietician, clinical psychologist, endoscopist, GI physician and pancreatic surgeon) in patients with on-going symptoms or when there is doubt in the diagnosis.