Charente- Maritime

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Charente-Maritime is a department on the west coast of France named after the Charente River.Previously a part of Saintonge, Charente-Inf rieure was one of the 83 original departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. On 4 September 1941, it was renamed Charente-Maritime.When first created, the commune of Saintes was assigned as the prefecture of the department (Saintes had previously been the prefecture of Saintonge). This changed in 1810 when Napol on passed an imperial decree which moved the prefecture to La Rochelle.