Poitevins

Poitou
Flag Coat of arms
Country	France
Area
• Total	19,709 km2 (7,610 sq mi)
Population (2006 estimate) Residents known as Poitevins
• Total	1,375,356
Time zone	CET
Count	638—677, Guérin de Trèves 1403—1461, Charles VII of France

Poitou (French pronunciation: ​[pwatu]), in Poitevin: Poetou, was a province of west-central France whose capital city was Poitiers.

The main historical cities are Poitiers (historical capital city), Châtellerault (France's kings establishment in Poitou), Niort, La Roche-sur-Yon, Thouars, and Parthenay.

The region of Poitou was called Thifalia (or Theiphalia) in the sixth century.

There is a marshland called the Poitevin Marsh (French Marais Poitevin) on the Gulf of Poitou, on the west coast of France, just north of La Rochelle and west of Niort.

By the Treaty of Paris of 1259, King Henry III of England recognized his loss of continental Plantaganet territory to France (including Normandy, Maine, Anjou, and Poitou).

During the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries Poitou was a hotbed of Huguenot (French Calvinist) activity among the nobility and bourgeoisie and was severely impacted by the French Wars of Religion (1562–1598).

Many of the Acadians who settled in what is now Nova Scotia beginning in 1604, and later in New Brunswick, came from the region of Poitou. After the Acadians were deported by the British beginning in 1755, some of them eventually took refuge in Québec. A large portion of these refugees were also deported to Louisiana in 1785 and eventually became known as Cajuns (from Acadians).

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