The β Cephei star HD 180642 was observed by the CoRoT satellite during a run of 156 days in 2007. The space white light photometry revealed the rich frequency spectrum of the star (Degroote et al. 2009). In the present study, we provide additional information on the target, based on both ground-based multi-colour photometry and high-resolution spectroscopy. We place our object in the (Teff, log g) diagram. In addition, we derive the chemical abundances of several elements as well as the metallicity of HD 180642. Finally, we put constraints on the identification of some modes. All these observational constraints will be used to compute stellar models of the target.