Marie Louise of Orléans (26 March 1662 – 12 February 1689) was Queen consort of Spain from 1679 to 1689 as the first wife of King Charles II of Spain. She was a granddaughter of Louis XIII of France. In her adopted country, she was known as María Luisa de Orleans.

Marie Louise d'Orléans was born at the Palais Royal in Paris. She was the eldest daughter of Philippe, Duke of Orléans, the younger brother of Louis XIV of France and of his first wife, Henrietta Anne of England. As a petite-fille de France she was entitled to the attribute of Royal Highness although, as was customary at court at the palace of Versailles, her style, Mademoiselle d'Orléans, was more often used.

Charming, pretty and graceful, Marie Louise, who was her father's favourite child, had a happy childhood, residing most of the time in the Palais-Royal, and at the château de Saint-Cloud situated a few kilometers west of Paris. Marie Louise spent a lot of time with both her paternal and maternal grandmothers - Anne of Austria, who doted on her and left the bulk of her fortune to her when she died in 1666; and Henrietta Maria, who lived in Colombes.

Marie Louise's mother died in 1670. The following year, her father married Elizabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate, who became a real mother to Marie Louise and her sisters. All her life, Marie Louise would maintain an affectionate correspondence with her stepmother.

It has been said that she wanted to marry her cousin Louis, Dauphin of France, however the surviving letters of her stepmother suggest that Marie Louise and the Dauphin were never in love. Her marriage to Charles II was seen as a way to induce better relations between France and Spain; the two nations had been on bad terms because of her uncle’s battles in the Spanish Netherlands.

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