- The map above is a Landsat satellite image of Louisiana with Parish boundaries superimposed. We have a more detailed satellite image of Louisiana without Parish boundaries. Louisiana Parishes and Administrative Cities.
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Louisiana
Each of Louisiana’s Scenic Byways tells its own unique tale as it weaves through the state. Driving along any of these Louisiana highways, you’ll get to know a little about the state’s natural beauty, its quaint towns and quirky personality (this is the land of Mardi Gras, mind you),.
- Land
- People
- Economy
- Government and society
- History
![Large map of louisiana Large map of louisiana](https://cdn.onlyinyourstate.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/8072328678_1757e847a3_o-700x466.jpg)
Detailed Map Of Louisiana
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Robert J. NorrellSee All ContributorsProfessor of History, University of Tennessee. Author of Reaping the Whirlwind: The Civil Rights Movement in Tuskegee and The House I Live In: Race in the American Century.
Alternative Title: Pelican State
Louisiana, constituent state of the United States of America. It is delineated from its neighbours—Arkansas to the north, Mississippi to the east, and Texas to the west—by both natural and man-made boundaries. Practice black jack online. The Gulf of Mexico lies to the south. The total area of Louisiana includes about 4,600 square miles (12,000 square km) of inland waters. The capital is Baton Rouge.
It’s All in the Name
What’s in a name? Sri Lanka and Mount Everest have had other names—do you know what they are? Sort out geographical aliases in this quiz.
Admitted to the union in 1812 as the 18th state, Louisiana commands a once strategically vital region where the waters of the great Mississippi-Missouri river system, draining the continental interior of North America, flow out into the warm, northward-curving crescent of the Gulf of Mexico. It is not surprising that seven flags have flown over its territories since 1682, when the explorer René-Robert Cavelier, sieur (lord) de La Salle, placed a wooden cross in the ground and claimed the territory in the name of France’sLouis XIV. The consequent varieties of cultural heritage run like bright threads through many facets of the social, political, and artistic life of the state.
With parts of its land lying farther south than any portion of the continental United States except southern Texas and the Florida peninsula, and with New Orleans, its largest city, lying on roughly the same parallel as Cairo, New Delhi, and Shanghai, Louisiana owes much of its complex personality to its geographic position. The subtropical climate of the state has provided the magnificent brooding scenery of the coastal bayous, and the lush, dank vegetation of its shores conceals a wealth of petroleum and natural gas. The fertile soil covering much of the terrain made Louisiana a rich agricultural area by 1860, with flourishing sugarcane and cottonplantations. A lumber boom occurred at the turn of the 20th century, and Louisiana underwent rapid industrialization after World War II. Mineral output is great, and the state ranks among the country’s leaders in oil and gas production.
But progress has not been without its tragic and turbulent aspects: bitter territorial disputes and violent internal struggles for political power impeded the social and economic development of the state and crippled many of its political institutions. The wealth of the plantations was accumulated through the extensive use of slaves, whose descendants comprise nearly one-third of Louisiana’s population and whose culture has contributed much to the social fabric of the state. Racial conflict marked the development of the state from the American Civil War period (1861–65) and Reconstruction (1865–77) through the civil rights movement of the 1950s and ’60s. The guarantee of suffrage (through the Voting Rights Act [1965]) and ever-increasing African American political involvement, however, have helped move the state toward being a more racially egalitarian society.
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Since the 1960s the state’s economy, tied closely to the fluctuating oil industry, has experienced slower economic growth and less diversification than many other Southern states. More recently, corruption in state politics and an explosion of crime in the New Orleans area have marred that city’s colourful image. Although the rich cultural heritage of the state is still enjoyed by many, tourism declined precipitously and businesses and residents suffered major losses after Hurricane Katrina devastated parts of the Gulf Coast (including New Orleans and other parts of Louisiana) in August 2005. Area 52,375 square miles (135,651 square km). Population (2010) 4,533,372; (2019 est.) 4,648,794.
Land
Relief
Three types of regions are found in Louisiana: lowlands, terraces, and hills. The lowlands consist of the coastal marshes and the Mississippi floodplain, with its natural levees and moderate relief. The Red River valley has a low-elevation relief, with red soils in its alluvial plain and many raft lakes built by impounding water from logjams. The terraces include much of the so-called Florida Parishes to the north and northeast of the Mississippi delta, as well as the prairies of southwestern Louisiana. Hills flank the Red River valley and lend contour to the northern portion of the Florida Parishes; the state’s highest point is Driskill Mountain (535 feet [163 metres]), in northwestern Louisiana.
Drainage
Louisiana shares the general physiographic characteristics common to the Gulf Coast states of the southern United States, with the vital exception of the Mississippi River, which borders and then flows through the state and extends its delta far into the Gulf of Mexico. The changing course of this great North American river has created the huge Atchafalaya River basin and has dumped tons of sediment along the coast. Despite this, the beachless coast of Louisiana is eroding; at the end of the 20th century, land was vanishing at a rate of about 24 square miles (62 square km) per year. This loss has been caused in part by the system of levees (or embankments) constructed by the federal government to keep the Mississippi in a central channel, which left side channels open to erosion. In 2005 Hurricane Katrina eroded an additional 73 square miles (189 square km) of the Louisiana coastland.
Soils
The soils of Louisiana have been one of the state’s priceless resources; more than one-fourth of the total land area is covered by the rich alluvium deposited by the overflowing of its rivers and bayous. Muck and peat soils are found within the coastal marshes, while the bottoms hold rich alluvial soils: the lighter and coarser bottom soils of the Mississippi and Red River valleys and the older alluvium and loessial, or windblown, soils. Within the uplands, or hills, there are more-mature soils that are less fertile.
State, United States
Seal of Louisiana
- Capital
- Baton Rouge
- Population1
- (2010) 4,533,372; (2019 est.) 4,648,794
- Total area (sq mi)
- 52,375
- Total area (sq km)
- 135,651
- Governor
- John Bel Edwards (Democrat)
- State nickname
- Pelican State
- Creole State
- Sugar State
- Date of admission
- April 30, 1812
- State motto
- 'Union, Justice, and Confidence'
- State bird
- eastern brown pelican
- State flower2
- southern magnolia
- Louisiana iris
- State song
- “Give Me Louisiana”
- “You Are My Sunshine”
- U.S. senators
- Bill Cassidy (Republican)
- John Kennedy (Republican)
- Seats in U.S. House of Representatives
- 7 (of 435)
- Time zone
- Central (GMT − 6 hours)
- 1Excluding military abroad.
- 2The Louisiana iris is the state wildflower.
![Cities in louisiana alphabetical Cities in louisiana alphabetical](https://cdn.wedj.com/media/9EC10B90CCDACC4986257DCF0066DA23/1500472185794795000.jpg)
Louisiana History
This southern state has a rich history and unique blend of cultures that is unrivalled anywhere else in the United States. Native American tribes including the Atakapa, Boocana, Nakasa and at least 12 other Indian clans first inhabited the Louisiana area. The first European explorers arrived from Spain and visited the Mississippi Delta area in 1528. Hernando De Soto followed with his expedition in 1548.
Louisiana Map With Cities And Towns
The Europeans took little interest in the Louisiana region for more than one hundred and fifty years until the French came to call in the late 17th century. France claimed a mighty chunk of North America for its own and began ambitious work on creating a commercial and religious domain from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.
The French explorer LaSalle gave the area its name in honor of King Louis XIV. This original Louisiana territory encompassed what are now 15 of the biggest states in the USA on both sides of the Mississippi River. New Orleans was declared the French capital of this New World due to its prime location along the Mighty Mississippi River.
The French ceded most of the land east of the great river to England after the French and Indian War (aka the Seven Years' War) in the mid 1700's. The rest became Spanish territory through the Treaty of Paris of 1763 at the end of the war.
After the Seven Years' War, thousands of French loyalists were ousted from Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick (the area then known as Acadia) by the British. These refugees made the long trek south across the North American continent to Southwest Louisiana. Today's Cajun people are the descendents of Acadian settlers, with a rich culture all their own.
During the 1700's a bond between Louisiana and its parent Caribbean colony became strong and centered on maritime trade. The land of Haiti had a strong influence on the people, culture, and religion of the area. Slave uprisings in the islands led to an influx of Haitian slave refugees, which the Spanish attempted to curtail with little effect. When Haiti won its independence in 1790, thousands of displaced French descended on New Orleans and southern Louisiana, along with their African slaves. The fear of 'seditious activities' was very high, with these Caribbean slaves spreading 'dangerous doctrines' among the local slave population.
Louisiana made its way back into the French Empire through a Treaty of San Ildefonso with Spain in 1800. Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France, attempted to create a new world empire based on the Caribbean sugar trade, with the linchpin being the take over and re-enslavement of the people of Santo Domingo (today's Dominican Republic). When the take over led by his brother failed, he decided to sell the whole Louisiana Territory to the United States.
Louisiana Purchase
The U.S. did not originally intend to buy ALL of Louisiana, but just New Orleans and surrounding regions. When Napoleon Bonaparte offered the entire Louisiana Territory, U.S. President Thomas Jefferson accepted. His special envoy James Monroe (later President Monroe) closed the 'Louisiana Purchase' for around $15 million in bonds, and that sale all but doubled the size of the United States of America overnight! After a rocky road through congress, Louisiana was officially transferred to the United States in 1803.
Louisiana Today
You know you've entered Louisiana when you hear that languid, poetic drawl, and everything just seems to slow down a pace or two. It's time then to kick back for a bit of southern hospitality, a lazy day of cat fishing, and a bowl of spicy gumbo.
The ethnically diverse state of Louisiana is home to the proud Cajun and Creole cultures. As described above, the Cajuns are descendents of Canadian Arcadians and have their own language that mixes English and French Canadian into something completely different!
Cajun and Creole culture have thankfully produced some of the finest cooking on the planet. A Louisiana vacation is not complete without a hearty sampling of the local gumbo, catfish, crayfish, and hot sauce. Even if taking a month long holiday in New Orleans, you can visit a new restaurant three times a day, every day, and still have plenty more on the list to try.
The term 'Creole' originally described the descendents of white men and black slave women, or women of mixed heritage that were often freed by their lovers or fathers. In today's Louisiana Creole refers to those who are a mix of French, African, Native American, and Spanish heritage that were born and raised in the local Creole culture.
The state of Louisiana is bordered in the west by Texas, the north by Arkansas, the east by Mississippi, and in the south by the bountiful Gulf of Mexico. In northern Louisiana, rolling hills are crisscrossed by the Red River, as it flows through the state from the northwest to southeast. Louisiana however, is also famously defined by the Mississippi River Delta and the coastal plains. The delta and resulting bayous and swamps cover the majority of Southern Louisiana. Both New Orleans and Baton Rouge are located in this region on the banks of the river.
Louisiana is home to gas and oil refineries, with hundreds of platforms located just offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. The state is also known for the quality and variety of its shrimp, crabs, and crayfish found in the saltwater tidal flats, and for the tasty catfish of the Louisiana Bayous. Both of these industries were hit hard by Hurricane Katrina, and both now are doing well again.
Tourism is a major industry in Louisiana, and no event is more important than New Orleans's Mardi Gras, as hundreds of thousands of revelers descend on the city each year for a fabulous festival of food, drink and merry making.
Music in Louisiana means Cajun Zydeco in the country and hot Jazz in the city. The annual Essence Music Festival in July brings big names in R&B to New Orleans, like Beyonce, Usher, and Anita Baker.
The charming city of Baton Rouge is the capital of Louisiana and emanates southern style and grace. There you should visit both the new and Old State Capitol buildings and tour the gracious Magnolia Plantation for a wonderful taste of the Old South.