Charleston is a city in Franklin County, Arkansas, United States, and along subsequent to Ozark is one of the two county seats of Franklin County. It is share of the Fort Smith, Arkansas-Oklahoma Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 2,494 at the 2010 census, down from 2,965 in 2000.

Charleston was platted in 1870.

In 1954, Charleston was the first scholastic district in the former Confederate States to implement scholastic integration in greeting to Brown v. Board of Education. On July 27, 1954, the educational board, including President Howard Madison Orsburn, George Hairston, Archibald Schaffer, Herbert Shumate, and Homer Keith, unanimously voted to “disband the Colored School and undertake the Colored children into the grade and high school next classes gain admission to for the fall semester.” Accordingly, when the schools opened upon August 23, 11 black kids were in attendance closely 480 whites. School Superintendent Woodie Haynes made an agreement with the local press not to cover the event, and stonewalled any uncovered reporters that asked questions. The decision to join had financial benefits, as the district had been paying a considerable sum to transport black tall school students to Fort Smith, and were able to close the outmoded Rosenwald school. During the Civil Rights era, the city was accompanied by a few Southern cities which surprisingly showed Tiny resistance to integration. Charleston suffered some discrimination from extra schools and the state; many schools refused to fake football neighboring them and the band was denied the opportunity to decree some band competitions. In 1961, the first two black students to graduate from Charleston were Barbara (Williams) Dotson and Joe Ferguson.

Charleston is in southwestern Franklin County, along Arkansas Highway 22, which leads east 9 miles (14 km) to Ratcliff and west 24 miles (39 km) to Fort Smith.