Charente-Maritime (French pronunciation: [ʃaʁɑ̃t maʁitim] ⓘ; Poitevin-Saintongeais: Chérente-Marine; Occitan: Charanta Maritima) is a département in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region on the southwestern coast of France.

[3] Previously a part of the provinces of Saintonge and Aunis, Charente-Inférieure was one of the 83 original département created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790.

[10] At the end of the war, the two last pockets of German resistance were both in this area: at La Rochelle in the north and Royan in the south.

Despite Royan having been nearly destroyed during an RAF bombing raid on 5 January 1945,[11] the town was not liberated by the French Forces of the Interior until April of the same year.

[3] The important rivers are the Charente and its tributaries, the Boutonne and the Seugne, along with the Sèvre Niortaise, the Seudre and the Garonne, in its downstream part, which is the estuary of the Gironde.

It is separated from the Massif Armoricain by the Marais Poitevin to the north-west and from the Parisian basin by the Seuil du Poitou to the north-east.

As of 2019, there are 7 communes with more than 8,000 inhabitants:[15] The climate is mild and sunny, with less than 900 mm of precipitation per year[16] and with insolation being remarkably high, in fact, the highest in Western France including southernmost sea resorts such as Biarritz.