Chartres (French pronunciation: [ʃaʁtʁ] ⓘ) is the prefecture of the Eure-et-Loir department in the Centre-Val de Loire region in France.

[7] During World War II, the city suffered heavy damage by bombing and during the battle of Chartres in August 1944, but its cathedral was spared by an American Army officer who challenged the order to destroy it.

[8] On 16 August 1944, Colonel Welborn Barton Griffith, Jr. questioned the necessity of destroying the cathedral and volunteered to go behind enemy lines to find out whether the Germans were using it as an observation post.

[8][9] For his heroic action both at Chartres and Lèves, Colonel Griffith posthumously received several decorations awarded by the president of the United States and the U.S. military, and also from the French government.

[10] Following deep reconnaissance missions in the region by the 3rd Cavalry Group and units of the 1139 Engineer Combat Group, and after heavy fighting in and around the city, Chartres was liberated, on 18 August 1944, by the U.S. 5th Infantry and 7th Armored Divisions belonging to the XX Corps of the U.S. Third Army commanded by Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.[11] Chartres is built on a hill on the left bank of the river Eure.

The stained glass windows of the cathedral were financed by guilds of merchants and craftsmen, and by wealthy noblemen, whose names appear at the bottom.

[16] The Église Saint-Pierre de Chartres was the church of the Benedictine Abbaye Saint-Père-en-Vallée, founded in the 7th century by queen Balthild.

[7] The river Eure, which at this point divides into three branches, is crossed by several bridges, some of them ancient, and is fringed in places by remains of the old fortifications, of which the Porte Guillaume (14th century), a gateway flanked by towers, was the most complete specimen, until destroyed by the retreating German army in the night of 15 to 16 August 1944.

The "parc André-Gagnon" or "Clos St. Jean", a pleasant park, lies to the north-west, and squares and open spaces are numerous.

The Maison Picassiette, a house decorated inside and out with mosaics of shards of broken china and pottery, was built by Raymond Isidore.

Historically, game pies and other delicacies of Chartres were well known, and the industries also included flour-milling, brewing, distilling, iron-founding, leather manufacture, perfumes, dyeing, stained glass, billiard requisites and hosiery.

[18] The Gare de Chartres railway station offers frequent services to Paris, and a few daily connections to Le Mans, Nogent-le-Rotrou and Courtalain.

The two main high schools are the Lycée Jehan de Beauce and the Lycée Marceau, named after two important personages of the history of Chartres: Jehan de Beauce was a 16th-century architect who rebuilt the northern steeple of the cathedral after it had been destroyed by lightning in July 1506, and Marceau, a native of city, who was a general during the French Revolution of 1789.