Saintes is a commune and historic town in western France, in the Charente-Maritime department of which it is a sub-prefecture, in Nouvelle-Aquitaine. Saintes is the second-largest city in Charente-Maritime, with 25,518 inhabitants in 2021. The city's immediate surroundings form the second-most populous metropolitan area in the department, with 56,598 inhabitants. While a majority of the surrounding landscape consists of fertile, productive fields, a significant minority of the region remains forested, its natural state.

Nouvelle-Aquitaine is the largest administrative region in France by area, spanning the west and southwest of Metropolitan France. The region was created in 2014 by the merging of Aquitaine, Limousin, and Poitou-Charentes in a territorial reform. Nouvelle-Aquitaine has an area of 84,035.7 km2 (32,446.4 sq mi) – more than 1⁄7 of Metropolitan France – and has a population of 6,033,952 as of 2020. The new region was established on 1 January 2016, following the regional elections in December 2015.