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Louisiana is a southern state of the United States of America. It uses the U.S. postal abbreviation LA.
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.
History
Louisiana was long inhabited by Native American tribes before the
arrival of Europeans. The lasting mark of the Native Americans can be seen even today in the names used in Louisiana, such as
Atchafalaya, Natchitouches (now spelled Natchitoches), Caddo, Houma, Tangipahoa, and Avoyel (Avoyelles Parish).
What follows is a partial list, using current parish boundaries as rough approximations of locations.
- The Atakapa were found
in southwestern Louisiana in the parishes of Vermilion, Cameron, Lafayette, Acadia, Jefferson Davis, and Calcasieu.
- The Chitimachas occupied the southeastern parishes of
Iberia, Assumption, St Mary, Lower St. Martin, Terrebone, LaFourche, St. James, St. John the Baptist, St. Charles, Jefferson,
Orleans, St. Bernard, and Plaquemines.
- The Bayougoula,
part of the Choctaw nation, were found in points directly north of
the Chitimachas, in the parishes of St. Helena, Tangipahoa, Washington, East and West Baton Rouge, Livingston, and St.
Tammany.
- The Houma tribe, was found in East and West Feliciana, and Pointe
Coupee parishes; Ironically about 100 miles north of current location of the town named after them.
- Portions of Avoyelles and Concordia parishes along the Mississippi River were home to the Avoyel, part of the Natchez nation.
- The northeastern parishes of Tensas, Madison, and East and West Carroll were occupied by the Tunica tribe.
- The remainder of current day central and north Louisiana was home to a substantial portion of the Caddo nation.
Source: Sturdevent, William C. (1967). Early Indian Tribes, Cultures, and
Linguistic Stocks , Smithsonian Institution Map
(Eastern United States)
The first European explorers to visit what is now Louisiana was a Spanish expedition in 1528 led by Panfilo de Navaez which
located the mouth of the Mississippi River. Some 13 years later
Hernando de Soto's expedition crossed
through the region. Thereafter the region was long neglected by the Spanish authorities, and the next explorers were French. Louisiana was named by the French explorer Robert Cavelier de La Salle in honour of Louis XIV in 1682. The first permanent settlement was founded by
Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville in 1699.
The French colony of Louisiana originally claimed a great region of land on both sides of the Mississippi River and north to Canada. Most of the settlement concentrated along the banks of the Mississippi and its major tributaries, with
trading outposts and mission settlements in the Illinois Country,
as far north as Peoria, Illinois and a number of settlements in
the area around near present-day Saint Louis, Missouri.
See also: French
colonization of the Americas
Initially Biloxi, Mississippi functioned as the capital
city of the colony; from 1722 on New
Orleans fulfilled that role.
Most of the territory to the east of the Mississippi was lost to 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 by the Treaty of Fountainebleau of 1762.
In 1800 France's Napoleon
Bonaparte re-acquired Louisiana from Spain in the Treaty of San Ildefonso, although this was kept secret for some two years.
In 1803 the United States of America purchased the French province of Louisiana.
See: Louisiana Purchase
The U.S. divided the newly acquired land into two territories: the Orleans Territory (which became the state of Louisiana in 1812) and
the District of Louisiana (which consisted of all the
land not included in Orleans Territory). The Florida Parishes are annexed from Spanish West
Florida by proclamation of President James Madison in 1810. The
western boundary of Louisiana with Spanish Texas remains disputed until the Adams-Onís Treaty in 1819, with the Sabine Free State serving as a neutral buffer zone as well as a haven for
criminals.
There are still remnants of its former status as a possession of France, including: the use of a civil law legal system, the
Napoleonic Code (like France, and unlike the rest of the United
States, which uses a common law legal system derived from England), the term
"parishes" being used to describe the state's sub-divisions as opposed to "counties", French as an official language (the only state that has French as an official
language), etc.
In 1849 the capital moved from New Orleans to Baton Rouge. Donaldsonville,
Opelousas, and Shreveport have also briefly served as the seat of governments of Louisiana.
In the American Civil War Louisiana seceded from the Union
on January 26, 1861. New Orleans was
captured by Federal troops on April 25, 1862.
As some portion of the population had Union sympathies, unusually the portions of Lousiana under Federal control were recognized
as a state within the Union and elected representatives who were sent to the congress in Washington, D.C. through the rest of the war.
Law and Government
The capital of Louisiana is Baton Rouge. Its governor is Kathleen
Blanco and its two U.S. senators are John B. Breaux and Mary Landrieu (all Democrats).
Louisiana is the only state whose legal system is based on Roman civil law as opposed to British common law. Technically, it
is known as "Code Napoleon" or The Napoleonic Code. It is simply the aforementioned Roman civil law in written
form, in order to be applied uniformly, and understood by everyone.
The differences between the Napoleonic Code and the laws of the rest of the United States are largely academic after all of
this time. Commercial laws have been updated to reflect laws in other
states, as well as federal law. Civil matters retain a bit more of Naploeon's
influence, but are nearly in line with most other states.
Louisiana is unique among U.S. states in using a runoff in state,
local, and congressional elections. All candidates run in an open primary on Election Day, in which multiple candidates from the same party may be on the ballot. If no
candidate has more than 50% of the vote, the two candidates with the highest vote total compete in a runoff election
approximately one month later. All other states use the First Past the Post electoral system to elect Senators, Representatives, and statewide
officials.
See: List of Louisiana Governors,
Napoleon Bonaparte
Geography
See: List of Louisiana parishes
The Mississippi River empties out of the southern portion of
the state into the Gulf of Mexico.
There are proposed plans to extend Interstate 69 to the Texas/Mexico border, which will go through
north-eastern Louisiana.
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East-west routes |
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Economy
The total gross state product in 1999 for Louisiana was $129 billion, placing it 24th in the nation. Its Per Capita
Personal Income was $23,334, 45th in the nation. The state's principal agricultural outputs include seafood, cotton,
soybeans, cattle, sugarcane, poultry and eggs ,dairy products, and rice. Its industrial outputs include chemical products,
petroleum and coal products, food processing, transportation equipment, paper products, and tourism.
Demographics
As of 2000, the state's population was 4,468,976.
See also: List of famous people
from Louisiana, List of Louisiana
musicians, Music of Louisiana
Important cities and towns
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Population > 1,000,000 (urbanized area)
Population > 100,000 (urbanized area)
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Population > 10,000 (urbanized area)
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Suburbs
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Education
Colleges and universities
- Centenary College of Louisiana
- Dillard University
- Louisiana
College
- Louisiana State University
System
- Louisiana State University at Alexandria
- Louisiana State
University at Baton Rouge
- Louisiana State University at Eunice
- Louisiana State
University at Shreveport
- University of New Orleans
- Loyola University New Orleans
- Our Lady of Holy Cross College
- Our Lady of the Lake College
- Southern University System
- Southern University Baton Rouge
- Southern University New Orleans
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Professional sports teams
Football
Baseball
Basketball
Hockey
- Minor League Hockey
- Louisiana
IceGators - ECHL
- Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs - CHL
See also
Miscellaneous information
- State dog : Catahoula Leopard Dog
- State bird : Eastern Brown Pelican
- State flower: Magnolia
- State tree : Bald
Cypress
- State mammal : Louisiana Black Bear
- State wild flower : Louisiana Iris
- State reptile : American Alligator
- State insect: Honeybee
- State crustacean : Crawfish
- State amphibian: Green Tree
Frog
- State songs: You
Are My Sunshine, Every
Man a King, and Give Me
Louisiana
Two separate historically Francophone communities exist in Louisiana.
- The ancestors of Creoles generally came to Louisiana directly from France or from the French colonies in the Caribbean and settled in New Orleans or in South Eastern
Louisiana.
- The ancestors of the Cajuns are the Acadians, a French-descended people of what are now New
Brunswick and Nova Scotia, Canada. When the British won the French and
Indian War, the British forced all of the citizens to take a pledge of allegiance. Most Acadians declined and emigrated from
Canada, most of them fleeing to the South Western portion of Louisiana, centered in the region around Lafayette.
For almost 20 years there was only one amusement park in Louisiana, and it was called Hamel's Amusement Park.
Disambiguation
- USS Louisiana was named in honor of this state.
External links
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Popular Topics
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