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Charente (; Saintongese: Chérente; ) is a department in the administrative region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine, southwestern France. It is named after the river Charente, the most important and longest river in the department, and also the river beside which the department's two largest towns, Angoulême and Cognac, are sited. In 2019, it had a population of 352,015. Populations légales 2019: 16 Charente, INSEE
Prior to the creation of the department as a single unit, much of it was commercially prosperous thanks to traditional industries such as salt and cognac production. Although the river Charente became silted up and was unnavigable for much of the twentieth century, in the eighteenth century it provided important links with coastal shipping routes both for traditional businesses and for newly evolving ones such as paper goods and iron smelting.
The accelerating pace of industrial and commercial development during the first half of the nineteenth century led to a period of prosperity, and the department's population peaked in 1851.Jean Combes (dir.) et Michel Luc (dir.), La Charente de la préhistoire à nos jours, Imprimerie Bordessoules, coll. "L'histoire par les documents", 1986, 429 p. () During the second half of the nineteenth century Charente, like many of France's rural departments, experienced a decline in population as the economic prospects available in the cities and in France's overseas empire attracted working-aged people. Economic ruin came to many in the Charentais wine industry with the arrival in 1872 of phylloxera.
During the twentieth century, the department with its traditional industries was adversely impacted by two major world wars, and in the second half of the century, it experienced relatively low growth. The overall population remaining remarkably stable at around 340,000 throughout the second half of the twentieth century, although industrial and commercial developments in the conurbation surrounding Angoulême have added some 10,000 to the overall population during the first decade of the twenty-first century.
The relatively relaxed pace of economic development in the twentieth century encouraged the immigration of retirees from overseas. Census data in 2006 revealed that the number of British citizens residing in the department had risen to 5,083, placing the department fourth in this respect behind Paris, Dordogne and Alpes-Maritimes.La Charente libre du 4 janvier 2010
The department is part of the current region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine. It is surrounded by the departments of Charente-Maritime, Dordogne, Haute-Vienne, Vienne and Deux-Sèvres. The southernmost “major” town (town with over 1,000 people) in the Charente is Chalais.
| Angoulême | 41,603 |
| Cognac | 18,670 |
| Soyaux | 9,761 |
| La Couronne | 7,764 |
| Saint-Yrieix-sur-Charente | 7,381 |
| Ruelle-sur-Touvre | 7,305 |
| Gond-Pontouvre | 6,119 |
| L'Isle-d'Espagnac | 5,626 |
| Champniers | 5,149 |
Population development since 1791:
| Charente's 1st constituency | René Pilato | La France Insoumise | |
| Charente's 2nd constituency | Sandra Marsaud | La République En Marche! | |
| Charente's 3rd constituency | Caroline Colombier | National Rally |
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