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Located in the southeastern United States, Louisiana
lies entirely within the Gulf Coastal Plain. It is shaped like a
capital L, approximately 530 km (330 mi) at its widest, and about 450
km (280 mi) from north to south. Louisiana is bordered by Mississippi
on the east, the Gulf of Mexico on the south, Texas on the west, and
Arkansas on the north. Sighted by the Spanish in 1519, Louisiana was
first explored by Panfilo de NARVAEZ of Spain, who navigated its
coast in 1528. Later, Robert Cavalier, sieur de LA SALLE, named the
region Louisiana in honor of the French king Louis XIV, claiming it
for France in 1682. The state's long and varied history, diverse
population, abundant energy resources, and strategic location at the
mouth of the Mississippi River are valued attributes. The problems
that exist in Louisiana stem from its prolonged recovery after the
Civil War, its relatively slow industrial growth, and its heavy
dependence on extractive industries.
LAND. Area: 123,677 sq km (47,752 sq mi); rank: 31st.
Capital: Baton Rouge. Largest city: New Orleans (1990 census,
496,938). County equivalents (parishes): 64. Elevations: highest--163
m (535 ft), at Driskill Mountain; lowest--minus 2 m (minus 5 ft), at
New Orleans. People of Louisiana
There is a rich diversity of peoples in Louisiana
(See Ancestry under Louisiana Demographics). They include the
original Indian inhabitants, plus the descendants of a variety of
settlers, among whom were the French, Spanish, English, German,
Acadians, West Indians, Africans, Irish and Italians and now include
almost every nationality on earth.
Ironically, it was the Spanish who built many of the
colonial structures that still stand in the "French Quarter" of New
Orleans, and Spanish is still spoken in some communities,
particularly in St. Bernard Parish below New Orleans. Hundreds of
German families were recruited in 1719 by the Company of the West
(which held the French royal charter for the development of
Louisiana), and those sturdy pioneers settled upriver from New
Orleans along a section of the Mississippi River that is still called
the Cote des Allemands ("German Coast"). The parishes north of Lake
Pontchartrain (the sixth largest lake in the U.S.) and east of the
Mississippi River were once a part of British West Florida, occupied
by English planters and military in the 1700s. Bernardo de Galvez,
Louisiana's Spanish governor and an American ally in the Revolution,
prevented the further development of a British stronghold in the
Mississippi Valley by capturing British forts at Manchac and Baton
Rouge in 1779.
Some Odd Facts
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Bibliography: GENERAL: Core, Lucy, and Calhoun, David, eds., The Louisiana Almanac 1984-85 (1984). DESCRIPTION AND GEOGRAPHY: Davis, Edwin A., and Suarez, Raleigh A., Louisiana: The Pelican State, 5th ed. (1985); Lockwood, C. C., Discovering Louisiana (1986); Newton, Milton B., Atlas of Louisiana (1972). LAND AND PEOPLE: Kniffen, Fred B., and Hilliard, Sam B., Louisiana: Its Land and People, rev. ed. (1987); Post, Lauren C., Cajun Sketches from the Prairies of Southwest Louisiana, 2d ed. (1974); Read, William A., Louisiana French, rev. ed. (1963); Smith, T. Lynn, and Hitt, Homer L., The People of Louisiana (1952) |
