The Charente is a river in western France that flows through the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region. It rises in the municipality of Chéronnac. It first flows north-west, turns south at Civray and finally flows into Angoulême. There it turns west and flows past the towns of Jarnac and Cognac until it reaches Saintes. Finally, it flows north-west and enters the Atlantic Ocean below Rochefort in the Bay of Biscay. Its mouth is opposite the island of Île d’Oléron. The river is about 381 kilometres long and is navigable by boat for about 150 kilometres from its mouth to Angoulême. The Charente area was once an important transport route for the famous French brandy. Which is called Cognac after its origin. Today, the river is mainly used by tourists in sports boats and houseboats.
Etymology
In Gallo-Roman times, the river was known by its Greek name Κανεντελος (Kanentelos). This hydronym was mentioned by the famous Greek geographer Claudios Ptolemy in 140 AD.
Charente near Fléac.
The earliest Latin reference to Charente is in a text by Ausone, a 4th century Gallo-Roman poet, who calls it Carantonus. There are also medieval references to Carente in 799, Carantona in 874, and Carentum in 891. Some ancient forms are similar to those of the Charentonne (Eure, Carentona 1050, Carentone 1339) and the Carantona, a river in Spain.
However, the non-doubling of -n- is problematic. Ernest Nègre believes that it is only the Gaulish suffix -ona.
As in the case of the ending, there is no unanimous opinion among experts on the nature of the first element:
Hydrography
The length of the river is 381 km, of which 196 km are classified as navigable (of which 103 km are navigable by sea) from Montignac at 40 m, but mainly from Angoulême at 29 m to the Atlantic Ocean. In practice, only 179 km are actually navigable thanks to 21 locks, two of which are classified as maritime.
From Angoulême to Port-du-Lys – the village of Merpins – the locks have a gauge of 28 m x 6,35 m and a clearance of 3,60 m. On the section of the river classified as ‚maritime‘, which runs from Port-du-Lys to the ocean. The locks are 34.80 m x 6.30 m at the Baine lock, located in the commune of Chaniers, upstream of Saintes, and 50 m x 8 m at the Saint-Savinien lock, with a clearance of 5.65 m.
Where the total length of the rivers in the Charente basin (10 549 km2 ) is 6 000 km.
The Loire River
