Cholet (French: [ʃɔlɛ] ⓘ, locally [ʃɔ(ː)ɫe], probably from Latin cauletum, "cabbage") is a commune of western France, in the Maine-et-Loire department.

[4] Cholet stands on an eminence on the right bank of the river Moine, which is crossed by a bridge from the fifteenth century.

The name of "De Cholet" family appears for the first time in the 11th century in the entourage of Lord Pierre I of Chemillé, who died in 1048.

[8] During the early years of the French revolutionary wars, the town found itself at the heart of the counter-revolutionary struggle in the Vendée, culminating in October 1793 with the Battle of Cholet which was won by the republicans and followed by a period of brutal government repression.

The history of this handkerchief goes back to the wars of Vendée: indeed, on 17 October 1793 the great battle of Cholet opposed, on one side, the Vendeans, with d'Elbée, Bonchamps, La Rochejaquelein and Stofflet.

Since then, the traditional handkerchief of Cholet created by a local industrialist, Léon Maret, is red with white stripes.

According to the 10 January 1885 edition of Corbett's Herald, a temporary theatre had collapsed on an audience of 1,000, causing 150 fatalities.

[9] The population data in the table and graph below refer to the commune of Cholet proper, in its geography at the given years.

The Church of the Sacred Heart is in the Byzantine Romanesque style and was the work of the local architect Maurice Laurentin.

After the year 1000, the monks of Marmoutier built a Romanesque-style church which was modified into Gothic at the end of the 15th century.

Cholet was the most important center in France for the sale of fat cattle, sheep and pigs, for which Paris was the chief market.

In Cholet held annually in March the Grand Prix Cholet-Pays de la Loire, a single-day road bicycle race.