structural:reformatting, information:extraction
Poitou-Charentes was an administrative region on the southwest coast of France. It is part of the new region Nouvelle-Aquitaine. It comprised four departments: Charente, Charente-Maritime, Deux-Sèvres and Vienne. It included the historical provinces of Angoumois, Aunis, Saintonge and Poitou. Poitiers was the regional capital. Other important cities were La Rochelle, Niort, Angoulême, Châtellerault, Saintes, Rochefort and Royan. Poitou-Charentes was merged with Aquitaine and Limousin to form the new administrative region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine on January 1, 2016.