Charolais, France

Charolais (French: [ʃaʁɔlɛ]; also Charollais) is a historic region of France, named after the central town of Charolles, and located in today's Saône-et-Loire département, in Burgundy.

It was held by the French noble house of Chalon-Arlay, until in 1237 Count John the Old ceded it to Duke Hugh IV of Burgundy.

The county of Charolais was inherited by Hugh's granddaughter Beatrice, who in 1272 married Count Robert of Clermont, a younger son of King Louis IX of France and progenitor of the House of Bourbon.

After the War of the Burgundian Succession, Charolais legally returned to the Habsburg dynasty according to the 1493 Treaty of Senlis, though it remained a French fief.

While the County of Burgundy fell to the French crown upon the 1678 Treaty of Nijmegen, Charolais was acquired by the Bourbon prince Louis of Condé in 1684.