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Queen Charlotte Sound is the easternmost of the main sounds of the Marlborough Sounds, in New Zealand's South Island.

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It is, like the other sounds, a drowned river valley (or ria), and like the majority of its neighbours it runs southwest to northeast before joining Cook Strait.

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Picton is a town in the Marlborough region of New Zealand. It is close to the head of Queen Charlotte Sound near the north-east corner of the South Island. The population was 2,928 in the 2006 Census, a decrease of 72 from 2001. The town is named after Sir Thomas Picton, the Welsh military associate of the Duke of Wellington, who was killed at the Battle of Waterloo.

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Cloudy Bay, given this name by Captain Cook in 1770, renamed Te Koko-o-Kupe / Cloudy Bay, with the Māori name recalling the early explorer Kupe scooping up oysters from the bay.

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The area lends its name to one of the best known New World white wines (Cloudy Bay Vineyards Sauvignon Blanc) although the grapes used in production of that wine are grown in the Marlborough wine region further inland.

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