Cognac, France
commune in Charente, New Aquitaine, France
Cognac (French pronunciation: [kɔɲak] ; Saintongese: Cougnat; Occitan: Conhac [kuˈɲak] ) is a commune in the Charente department, southwestern France. Administratively, the commune of Cognac is a subprefecture of the Charente department.
Name
The name is believed to be formed from an individual masculine name -Connius, a Gallic name, and the suffix -acum, which would correspond to the "domain of Connius".
History
The town of Cognac was unknown before the ninth century, when it was fortified. During the Hundred Years' War, the town continually changed sides, according to the tides of war. In 1526, it lent its name to the War of the League of Cognac, the military alliance established by King Francis I of France to fight against the House of Habsburg. As a benefit of the War League of Cognac, King Francis I granted to the town of Cognac the commercial right to participate in the salt trade conducted along the river Charente, from which regional Cognac developed into a centre for the production of wine and brandy.
In November 1651, Cognac was besieged by rebels led by the Prince de Condé during the 1648-1653 civil war, the "Fronde"; the town was relieved in December by a force under Comte d'Harcourt; afterwards, King Louis XIV granted Cognac additional commercial rights.
Cognac was part of the historic French province of Angoumois. In 1790, following the French Revolution that began the year before, the provinces were abolished and Angoumois became part of the newly created department of Charente.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Cognac, France” as commune in Charente, New Aquitaine, France. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as commune in Charente, New Aquitaine, France. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q285. VIAF identifies the subject as 264607663. The Library of Congress control number is n81071601. Authority coordinates are 45.696, -0.329. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1526, 1651, 1648 and 1653.
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This entry incorporates text from “Cognac, France” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.