Chalmette is a census-designated place (CDP) in and the parish seat of St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 32,069 at the 2000 census. It is part of the New Orleans–Metairie–Kenner Metropolitan Statistical Area. The community was named after plantation owner I. Martin de Lino de Chalmette, whose surname in turn is derived from the French word chalmette — "pasture land, fallow land" (used especially in a mountainous area) — and has been traced to the Proto-Celtic *kalm.