POITOU-CHARENTES - Geography and history
Comprising the four départements of Charente, Charente-Maritime, Deux-Sèvres and Vienne, the Poitou-Charentes region has an area of 25 800 km2. It is made up of four zones, which are different in size, physical features, climate and population:
- on the granite foothills of the Massif Central, grasslands where animals graze;
- to the north-west, a corner of the Massif Armoricain, with its patchwork landscape of pastures, forests and fens, is also a cattlerearing area;
- along the Atlantic coast, a zone of alluvial plains and fens, where maritime activities and tourism predominate;
- in the centre, cereals, oilseed plants and vines are grown on soils of varying degrees of fertility in which limestone predominates.
The region has a maritime climate with a large number of hours of sunshine and, in the two zones of pastureland, higher precipitation than in the other two.
This natural diversity has resulted in complementarity and solidarity between the inhabitants of the former provinces of Poitou, Angoumois, Saintonge and Aunis, where, in days gone by, different civilisations passed through and clashed with one another.
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