The State of Louisiana ( French: État de Louisiane, pronounced [lwizjan] ) is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America.
The capital of Louisiana is Baton Rouge and the most populous city is New Orleans. The largest parish by population is Jefferson Parish and largest by area is Terrebonne Parish (Louisiana is the only state divided into parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties). The New Orleans metropolitan area is Louisiana's largest.
Louisiana has a unique multicultural and multilingual heritage.
Originally part of New France, Louisiana is home to many speakers of Cajun French and Louisiana Creole French. African American/Franco-African, and French/French Canadian form the two largest groups of ancestry in Louisiana's population.
Louisiana (New France) was named after Louis XIV, king of France from 1643-1715. When René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle claimed the territory drained by the Mississippi River for France, he named it La Louisiane, meaning "Land of Louis".
Louisiana was once part of the Louisiana Territory which once stretched from present-day New Orleans to across the present day Canadian border.
The territory was acquired in 1803 by the United States by way of the Louisiana Purchase. Part or all of 15 states were formed from the territory.
An alternative explanation of the name is that Louisiana is a combination of Louis XIV and his wife Anna of Austria.
This, however, is false. While his mother was Anne of Austria, Louis XIV was married to Marie-Thérèse.
Geography
Louisiana is bordered to the west by the state of Texas; to the north by Arkansas; to the east by the state of Mississippi; and to the south by the Gulf of Mexico.
The surface of the state may properly be divided into two parts, the uplands and the alluvial, including coast and swamp regions.
The alluvial regions, including the low swamps and coast lands, cover an area of about 20,000 square miles (52,000 km²); they lie principally along the Mississippi River, which traverses the state from north to south for a distance of about 600 miles (1,000 km) and ultimately empties into the Gulf of Mexico; the Red River; the Ouachita River and its branches; and other minor streams.
The breadth of the alluvial region along the Mississippi is from 10 to 60 miles (15 to 100 km), and along the other rivers it averages about 10 miles (15 km).
The Mississippi flows upon a ridge formed by its own deposits, from which the lands incline toward the low swamps beyond at an average fall of six feet per mile (3 m/km). The alluvial lands along other streams present very similar features.
The higher lands and contiguous hill lands of the north and northwestern part of the state have an area of more than 25,000 square miles (65,000 km²). They consist of prairie and woodlands. The elevations above sea-level range from 10 feet (3 m) at the coast and swamp lands to 50 and 60 feet (15–18 m) at the prairie and alluvial lands.
In the uplands and hills the elevations rise to Driskill Mountain the highest point in the state at only 535 feet (163 m) above sea level. Only two other states in the union, Florida and Delaware, are geographically lower than Louisiana, though several other states, such as Kansas and Nebraska, are geographically flatter.
Besides the navigable rivers already named (some of which are called bayous), there are the Sabine (Sah-BEAN), forming the western boundary, and the Pearl, the eastern boundary, the Calcasieu (KAL-cah-shoe), the Mermentau, the Vermilion, the Teche, the Atchafalaya, the Boeuf (buff), the Lafourche (Luff-OOSH), the Courtableau, the D'Arbonne, the Macon, the Tensas (TEN-saw), the Amite, the Tchefuncte, the Tickfaw, the Natalbany, and a number of other streams of lesser note, constituting a natural system of navigable waterways, aggregating over 4,000 miles (6,400 km) in length, which is unequalled in the United States.
The state also has 1,060 square miles (2,745 km²) of land-locked bays, 1,700 square miles (4,400 km²) of inland lakes, and a river surface of over 500 square miles (1,300 km²).
Climate
Louisiana has a humid subtropical climate, perhaps the most "classic" example of a humid subtropical climate of all the Southeastern states, with long, hot, humid summers and short, mild winters.
The subtropical characteristics of the state are due in large part to the influence of the Gulf of Mexico, which even at its farthest point is no more than 200 miles (320 km) away.
Precipitation is frequent throughout the year, although the summer is slightly wetter than the rest of the year. There is a dip in precipitation in October.
Southern Louisiana receives far more copious rainfall, especially during the winter months. Summers in Louisiana are hot and humid, with high temperatures from mid-June to mid-September averaging 90 °F (32 °C) or more and overnight lows averaging above 70 °F (22 °C).
In the summer, the extreme maximum temperature is much warmer in the north than in the south, with temperatures near the Gulf of Mexico occasionally reaching 100 °F (38 °C), although temperatures above 95 °F (35 °C) are commonplace.
In northern Louisiana, the temperatures reach above 105 °F (41 °C) in the summer.
Temperatures are generally mildly warm in the winter in the southern part of the state, with highs around New Orleans, Baton Rouge, the rest of south Louisiana, and the Gulf of Mexico averaging 66 °F (19 °C), while the northern part of the state is mildly cool in the winter with highs averaging 59 °F (15 °C).
The overnight lows in the winter average well above freezing throughout the state, with 46 °F (8 °C) the average near the Gulf and an average low of 37 °F (3 °C) in the winter in the northern part of the state.
Louisiana does have its share of cold fronts, which frequently drop the temperatures below 20 °F (-8 °C) in the northern part of the state, but almost never do so in the southern part of the state. Snow is not very common near the Gulf of Mexico, although those in the northern parts of the state can expect one to three snowfalls per year, with the frequency increasing northwards.
Louisiana is often affected by tropical cyclones and is very vulnerable to strikes by major hurricanes, particularly the lowlands around and in the New Orleans area. The unique geography of the region with the many bayous, marshes and inlets can make major hurricanes especially destructive.
The area is also prone to frequent thunderstorms, especially in the summer. The entire state averages over 60 days of thunderstorms a year averaging more thunderstorms than any other state except Florida. Louisiana averages 27 tornadoes annually.
The entire state is vulnerable to a tornado strike, with the extreme southern portion of the state slightly less than the rest of the state. Tornadoes are much more common from January to March in the southern part of the state, and from February through March in the northern part of the state.
History
Early settlement
Louisiana was inhabited by Native Americans when European explorers arrived in the 17th century.
Many place names in the state are transliterations of those used in Native American dialects.
Among the tribes that inhabited what is now Louisiana included the Atakapa, the Opelousa, the Acolapissa, the Tangipahoa, the Chitimacha in the southeast of the state, the Washa, the Chawasha, the Yagenechito, the Bayougoula and the Houma (part of the Choctaw nation), the Quinipissa, the Okelousa, the Avoyel and the Taensa (part of the Natchez nation), the Tunica, and the Koroa.
Central and northwest Louisiana was home to a substantial portion of the Caddo nation and the Natchitoches confederacy consisting of the Natchitoches, the Yatasi, the Nakasa, the Doustioni, the Quachita, and the Adai.
Exploration and colonization by Europeans
Louisiana regions
Louisiana regions
The first European explorers to visit Louisiana came in 1528.
The Spanish expedition (led by Panfilo de Narváez) located the mouth of the Mississippi River. In 1541, Hernando de Soto's expedition crossed the region.
Then Spanish interest in Louisiana lay dormant. In the late 17th century, French expeditions, which included sovereign, religious and commercial aims, established a foothold on the Mississippi River and Gulf Coast.
With its first settlements, France lay claim to a vast region of North America and set out to establish a commercial empire and French nation stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada.
The French explorer Robert Cavelier de La Salle named the region Louisiana to honor France's King Louis XIV in 1682. The first permanent settlement, Fort Maurepas (at what is now Ocean Springs, Mississippi, near Biloxi), was founded by Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville, a French military officer from Canada, in 1699.
The French colony of Louisiana originally claimed all the land on both sides of the Mississippi River and north to French territory in Canada. The following States were part of Louisiana: Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota.
The settlement of Natchitoches (along the Red River in present-day northwest Louisiana) was established in 1714 by Louis Juchereau de St. Denis, making it the oldest permanent European settlement in the Louisiana Purchase territory.
The French settlement had two purposes: to establish trade with the Spanish in Texas, and to deter Spanish advances into Louisiana. Also, the northern terminus of the Old San Antonio Road (sometimes called El Camino Real, or Kings Highway) was at Nachitoches. The settlement soon became a flourishing river port and crossroads, giving rise to vast cotton kingdoms along the river.
Over time, planters developed large plantations and built fine homes in a growing town, a pattern repeated in New Orleans and other places.
Louisiana's French settlements contributed to further exploration and outposts, concentrated along the banks of the Mississippi and its major tributaries, from Louisiana to as far north as the region called the Illinois Country, around Peoria, Illinois and present-day St. Louis, Missouri.
Initially Mobile, Alabama and Biloxi, Mississippi functioned as the capital of the colony; recognizing the importance of the Mississippi River to trade and military interests, France made New Orleans the seat of civilian and military authority in 1722.
From then until the Louisiana Purchase made the region part of the United States on December 20, 1803, France and Spain would trade control of the region's colonial empire.
In the 1720s, German immigrants settled along the Mississippi River in a region referred to as the German Coast.
Most of the territory to the east of the Mississippi was lost to the Kingdom of Great Britain in the French and Indian War, except for the area around New Orleans and the parishes around Lake Pontchartrain.
The rest of Louisiana became a colony of Spain after the Seven Years' War by the Treaty of Paris of 1763.
During the period of Spanish rule, several thousand French-speaking refugees from the region of Acadia (now Nova Scotia, Canada) made their way to Louisiana following British expulsion; settling largely in the southwestern Louisiana region now called Acadiana. The Acadian refugees were welcomed by the Spanish, and descendants came to be called Cajuns.
Canary Islanders, called Isleños, migrated to Louisiana under the Spanish crown between 1778 and 1783.
In 1800, France's Napoleon Bonaparte acquired Louisiana from Spain in the Treaty of San Ildefonso, an arrangement kept secret for some two years.
Purchase by the United States
When the United States won its independence from Great Britain in 1783, one of its major concerns was having a European power on its western boundary, and the need for unrestricted access to the Mississippi River.
As American settlers pushed west, they found that the Appalachian Mountains provided a barrier to shipping goods eastward.
The easiest way to ship produce was to use a flatboat to float it down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to the port of New Orleans, from where goods could be put on ocean-going vessels.
The problem with this route was that the Spanish owned both sides of the Mississippi below Natchez. Napoleon's ambitions in Louisiana involved the creation of a new empire centered on the Caribbean sugar trade. By terms of the Treaty of Amiens of 1800, Great Britain returned ownership of the islands of Martinique and Guadaloupe to the French. Napoleon looked upon Louisiana as a depot for these sugar islands, and as a buffer to U.S. settlement.
In October of 1801 he sent a large military force to retake the important island of Santo Domingo, lost in a slave revolt in the 1790s.
Louisiana state welcome sign
Louisiana state welcome sign
Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States, was disturbed by Napoleon's plans to re-establish French colonies in America.
With the possession of New Orleans, Napoleon could close the Mississippi to U.S. commerce at any time. Jefferson authorized Robert R. Livingston, U.S. Minister to France, to negotiate for the purchase of the City of New Orleans, portions of the east bank of the Mississippi, and free navigation of the river for U.S. commerce. Livingston was authorized to pay up to $2 million.
An official transfer of Louisiana to French ownership had not yet taken place, and Napoleon's deal with the Spanish was a poorly kept secret on the frontier.
On October 18, 1802, however, a strange thing happened. Juan Ventura Morales, Acting Intendant of Louisiana, made public the intention of Spain to revoke the right of deposit at New Orleans for all cargo from the United States.
The closure of this vital port to the United States caused anger and consternation, and commerce in the west was virtually blockaded. Historians believe that the revocation of the right of deposit was prompted by abuses of the Americans, particularly smuggling, and not by French intrigues as was believed at the time.
President Jefferson ignored public pressure for war with France, and appointed James Monroe special envoy to Napoleon, to assist in obtaining New Orleans for the United States. Jefferson also raised the authorized expenditure to $10 million.
On April 11, 1803, Talleyrand, the French Foreign Minister, asked Robert Livingston how much the United States was prepared to pay for the entirety of Louisiana.
Livingston was confused, as his instructions only covered the purchase of New Orleans and the immediate area, not the entire territory. James Monroe agreed with Livingston that Napoleon might withdraw this offer at any time.
To wait for approval from President Jefferson might take months, so Livingston and Monroe decided to open negotiations immediately. By April 30, they closed a deal for the purchase of the entire 828,000 square miles (2,145,000 km²) Louisiana territory for 60 million Francs (approximately $15 million). Part of this sum was used to forgive debts owed by France to the United States.
The payment was made in United States bonds, which Napoleon sold at face value to the Dutch firm of Hope and Company, and the British banking house of Baring, at a discount of 87 1/2 per each $100 unit.
As a result, France received only $8,831,250 in cash for Louisiana. Dutiful banker Alexander Baring conferred with Marbois in Paris, shuttled to the United States to pick up the bonds, took them to Britain, and returned to France with the money - and Napoleon used these funds to wage war against Baring's own country.
When news of the purchase reached the United States, Jefferson was surprised.
He had authorized the expenditure of $10 million for a port city, and instead received treaties committing the government to spend $15 million on a land package which would double the size of the country. Jefferson's political opponents in the Federalist Party argued that the Louisiana purchase was a worthless desert, and that the Constitution did not provide for the acquisition of new land or negotiating treaties without the consent of the Senate.
What really worried the opposition was the new states which would inevitably be carved from the Louisiana territory, strengthening Western and Southern interests in Congress, and further reducing the influence of New England Federalists in national affairs. President Jefferson was an enthusiastic supporter of westward expansion, and held firm in his support for the treaty.
Despite Federalist objections, the U.S. Senate ratified the Louisiana treaty in the autumn of 1803.
A transfer ceremony was held in New Orleans on November 29, 1803. Since the Louisiana territory had never officially been turned over to the French, the Spanish took down their flag, and the French raised theirs.
The following day, General James Wilkinson accepted possession of New Orleans for the United States. A similar ceremony was held in St. Louis on March 9, 1804, when a French tricolor was raised near the river, replacing the Spanish national flag.
The following day, Captain Amos Stoddard of the First U.S. Artillery marched his troops into town and ran the stars and stripes up the fort's flagpole.
The Louisiana territory was officially transferred to the United States government, represented by Meriwether Lewis.
The Louisiana Territory, purchased for less than 3 cents an acre, doubled the size of the United States literally overnight, without a war or the loss of a single American life, and set a precedent for the purchase of territory.
It opened the way for the eventual expansion of the United States across the continent to the Pacific, and its consequent rise to the status of world power.
Economy
Louisiana was the first site of oil drilling over water in the world, near the mouth of the Mississippi River.
The oil and gas industry as well as its subsidiary industries such as transport and refining, have dominated Louisiana's economy since the 1940's. Beginning in 1950, Louisiana was sued several times by the U.S. Interior Department, in efforts by the Federal Government to strip Louisiana of its submerged land property rights, which stored vast reservoirs of oil and natural gas.
When oil and gas boomed in the 1970's, so did Louisiana's economy. Likewise, when the oil and gas crash occurred in the 1980's, in large part due to monetary policy set by the Federal Reserve, so did Louisiana real estate, savings and loans, as well as local banks crash.
The Louisiana economy as well as its politics of the last half-century cannot be understood without thoroughly accounting for the influence of the oil and gas industries.
Since the 1980's these industries have consolidated in Houston.
Louisiana State Quarter
The total gross state product in 2005 for Louisiana was US168 billion, placing it 24th in the nation.
Its per capita personal income is US$30,952, ranking 41st in the United States.
The state's principal agricultural products include seafood (it is the biggest producer of crayfish in the world), cotton, soybeans, cattle, sugarcane, poultry and eggs, dairy products, and rice.
Industry generates chemical products, petroleum and coal products, food processing and transportation equipment, and paper products.
Tourism is an important element in the economy.
The Port of South Louisiana, located on the Mississippi between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, is the largest volume shipping port in the Western Hemisphere and 4th largest in the world. It is the largest bulk cargo port in the world.
New Orleans and Shreveport is also home to a thriving film industry. The state offers financial incentives combined with the states aggressive efforts have put the local film industry on a fast track.
In late 2007 and early 2008, a 300,000-square-foot film studio will open in Treme, with state-of-the-art production facilities, and a film training institute.
In fact Shreveport has even been given the moniker "Hollywood South" for the number of films being shot here. These have included Mr. Brooks, Premonition, and Factory Girl.
Louisiana has three personal income tax brackets, ranging from 2% to 6%.
The sales tax rate is 4%: a 3.97% Louisiana sales tax and a .03% Louisiana Tourism Promotion District sales tax. Political subdivisions also levy their own sales tax in addition to the state fees.
The state also has a use tax, which includes 4% to be distributed by the Department of Revenue to local governments. Property taxes are assessed and collected at the local level.
