Charente
Charente (; Saintongese: "Chérente"; ) is a department in the administrative region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine, south western France. It is named after the river Charente, the most important river in the department, and also the river beside which the department's two largest towns, Angoulême and Cognac, are sited. The Charente is the longest river in the Charente department. History. Charente is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was created from the former province of Angoumois, and western and southern portions of Saintonge. 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. 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. Geography. It is largely part of the Aquitaine Basin, with the north-eastern part in the Massif Central. The Charente flows through it and gave its  name to the department, along with Charente-Maritime. It is composed with the historical region of Angoumois and contains part of the regions of Saintonge, Limousin, Périgord and Poitou. The department is part of the current region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine. (Or pre-2016, Poitou-Charente. It is surrounded by the departments of Charente-Maritime, Dordogne, Haute-Vienne, Vienne and Deux-Sèvres. Its capital is Angoulême. The southern most “major” town (town with over 1,000 people) in the Charente is Chalais, Charente. Demographics. The inhabitants of the department are called "Charentais" or in feminine, Charentaise Population development since 1791: Politics. The President  of the General Council is Michel Boutant of the Socialist Party. Economy. Cognac and pineau are two of the major agricultural products of the region, along with butter. The Charentaise slipper (a type of slipper made from felt and wool) is another well-known traditional product.