Coordinates: 54°14′06″N 0°22′59″W / 54.235°N 0.383°W / 54.235; -0.383

Cayton is a village and civil parish within the Scarborough borough of North Yorkshire, England and is mentioned in the Domesday book as Caitune. It is about 4 miles (6.4 km) south of Scarborough.

According to the 2001 UK census, Cayton parish had a population of 2,407.

Cayton County Primary School educates all young villagers, aged 4 to 11.

Cayton Bay is famous amongst the surfing community around the world and has a thriving Surf Shop and car park on the cliff tops above the Bay. The Bay forms one of a series of large sweeping sandy bays on the edge of the North Yorkshire National Park which run from Bridlington in the south to Whitby in the north.

Cayton railway station on the Yorkshire Coast Line from Hull to Scarborough served the village until it closed on 5 May 1952.

In 2010, Cayton won a Silver-gilt, at the Britain in Bloom awards. This was achieved despite the fact that earlier in the year, there had been a mystery sabotage attack/s on a number of flower beds in the village.

William D. Cayton (June 6, 1918 - October 4, 2003), best known for helping to manage and promote Mike Tyson early in his career, was also famous for preserving much of boxing's legacy through his efforts as a film historian and producer. He was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2005.

Born in New York City, Cayton graduated from the University of Maryland in 1937 with a degree in chemical engineering and founded his own advertising agency, Cayton Inc., in 1945. He became involved in boxing in 1948 when he created and produced the TV program titled "Greatest Fights of the Century" to promote Vaseline Brand Hair Tonic. Television was then in its infancy and Cayton felt that boxing was the sport that lent itself best to the tiny black and white screens of the time.

To create the program, and many others that followed, he licensed, then later acquired, rights to vintage boxing film footage, and for nearly fifty years amassed and restored a collection of thousands of films going back to 1897. These films featured such legendary boxers as Jim Corbett, Jack Johnson, Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, Sugar Ray Robinson, Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, Wilfred Benítez, and Kid Gavilan. Cayton even acquired rights to the first boxing film ever made, a sparring session filmed by Thomas Edison in 1894. His effort in collecting, restoring, and maintaining these films, many of which were rapidly deteriorating, is credited for preserving modern boxing's heritage and history. Mr. Cayton undertook meticulous, arduous efforts in the restoration of his epic footage.