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Wareham ('/w//ɛər//əm/ WAIRəm) is a historic market town and, under the name Wareham Town, a civil parish, in the English county of Dorset. The town is situated on the River Frome eight miles (13 km) southwest of Poole.

The town is built on a strategic dry point between the River Frome and the River Piddle at the head of the Wareham Channel of Poole Harbour. The Frome Valley runs through an area of unresistant sand, clay and gravel rocks, and much of its valley has wide flood plains and marsh land. At its estuary the river has formed the wide shallow ria of Poole Harbour. Wareham is built on a low dry island between the marshy river plains. The town is situated on the A351 Lytchett Minster Swanage road, linking Wareham with the A35 and A31 roads and the M27 motorway. Wareham is also the eastern terminus of the A352 road to Dorchester and Sherborne, both roads now bypassing the town centre. The town has a station on the South West Main Line railway, and was formerly the junction station for services along the branch line to Swanage, now preserved as the Swanage Railway. The steam railway has ambitions to extend its service, currently from Swanage to Norden, near Corfe Castle back to Worgret Junction (where the mainline and branch divided) and into Wareham again. To the north west of the town a large conifer plantation, Wareham Forest stretches several miles to the A35 road and the southern foothills of the Dorset Downs. To the south east is Corfe Castle and the heathland that borders Poole Harbour, including Wytch Farm oil field and Studland & Godlingstone Heath Nature Reserve. About four miles (7 km) to the south is a chalk ridge, the Purbeck Hills which faces the Isle of Wight to the east, and eight miles (12 km) to the south is the English Channel.

The town's strategic setting has made it an important settlement throughout its long history. Excavations at the nearby Bestwall site have produced evidence of transient early Mesolithic activity dating to around 9000 BCE. At the same site four large Neolithic pits containing worked flint and pottery fragments dating to 3700 BCE were found. Three green stone axeheads discovered also probably date to this period. Flint working and potting continued throughout the Bronze Age. The first house discovered dates to the mid 15th century BCE. Archaeological evidence exists of a small Roman settlement, though the current town was founded by the Saxons. The Roman name is unknown, but the town is referred to as Werham in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle entry of 784, from Old English wer (meaning 'fish trap, a weir') and hām ('homestead') or hamm ('enclosure hemmed in by water'). The town's oldest features are the town walls, ancient earth ramparts surrounding the town, likely built by Alfred the Great in the 9th century to defend the town from the Danes as part of his system of burh towns. The Danes invaded and occupied Wareham in 876, and only left after Alfred returned with an army and made a payment of Danegeld. In 998 they attacked again, and in 1015 an invasion led by King Canute left the town in ruins. The town was a Saxon royal burial place, notably that of King Beorhtric (d. 802). Also in the town at the ancient minster church of Lady St. Mary is the coffin said to be that of Edward the Martyr, dating from 978. His remains had been hastily buried there and were later taken from Wareham to Shaftesbury Abbey in north Dorset (and now lie in Brookwood Cemetery, Surrey). By the end of the Saxon period, Wareham had become one of the most important towns in the county, to the extent that it housed two mints for the issue of Royal money. The Burghal Hidage lists the town as 1,600 hides, the third largest in the realm. The Normans later built a castle on the banks of the River Frome, at a site acquired from the Abbot of Shaftesbury and now known as Castle Close, which became the focus of much fighting between the forces of Stephen and Matilda during the period of civil war in the mid 12th century. The keep was destroyed at an unknown date in the 12th or 13th century, possibly under the terms of the Treaty of Wallingford, and no visible trace remains. Up until this time Wareham had been an important port; however the growth of Poole and the gradual silting of the river caused a decline in trade and by the end of the 13th century most of the foreign trade had transferred to Poole. Local trade continued to be handled at the Quay until the construction of the railway in the 19th century. During the English Civil War, Wareham changed hands several times between the Royalists and Parliamentarians and in August 1644 was the site of a fierce battle with 2,000 Cromwellian soldiers besieging the town. After the Monmouth Rebellion of 1685, Wareham was one of a number of towns in Dorset where Judge Jeffreys held the Bloody Assizes, with five rebels being hanged, drawn and quartered on the West Walls, an area known as 'Bloody Bank'. This may also have been the site of the execution of a hermit known as Peter de Pomfret who in 1213 had prophesied that before the next Ascension Day King John's rule would be over. The prophecy turned out to be incorrect, and the King decreed that Peter should be dragged through the streets of the town tied to a horse's tail and hanged together with his son. The town survived the Second World War largely intact, although five houses were destroyed when a bomb dropped by a German aeroplane fell near St Martin's Church in 1942. Because of the constraints of the rivers and marshland Wareham grew little during the 20th century, while nearby towns, such as Poole, grew rapidly.

Thomas Hardy in his novels based the town of "Anglebury" on Wareham. Dinah Craik used the town as one of the settings in her novel Agatha's Husband (as "Kingcombe"). Anglebury House a tea house/restaurant still operating on the high street was frequented by T E Lawrence. The seat where Lawrence regularly sat is marked by a plaque. Wareham is the setting for one of the "Amazing Adventures of Scary Bones the Skeleton" series of books for children by Ron Dawson, Scary Bones meets the Wacky Witches of Wareham. The book also includes a photograph of the town bridge and nearby Corfe Castle which also features in the story. Some scenes from the 2002 German ZDF TV production Morgen Träumen Wir Gemeinsam ("Tomorrow We Dream Together") were filmed in Wareham. The hymn tune "Wareham" was composed by William Knapp (born at Wareham, 1698–9); Knapp composed several other hymn tunes and was parish clerk of Poole. Wareham appears in the 2020 video game Assassin's Creed Valhalla, under the name of Werham.

Wareham is the home of Wareham Rangers Football Club who currently play in the Dorset Premier League. It is also the home of Swanage and Wareham RFU. There is a multi activity sports centre and swimming pool situated 500 metres west of the town centre.