n.
Historical region, lower Loire valley, northwestern France.
Organized in the Gallo-Roman period as the Civitas Andegavensis, it later became the countship, and from 1360 the duchy, of Anjou. Its capital was Angers. Under the Carolingian dynasty , it was nominally administered by a count representing the French king. The area came under the English king Henry II when he married Eleanor of Aquitaine in 1152, thus founding the Anglo-Angevin empire of the Plantagenet dynasty. The French recovered Anjou in 1259, and it was united with France in 1487. It ceased to exist as a department in 1790.