Louisiana is one of the Southern States of the United States. It lies where the Mississippi River empties into the Gulf of Mexico. This important location has made Louisiana one of the country’s busiest commercial areas. Water routes link the state with both the heart of America and lands across the sea.
In colonial days, traders and fur trappers traveled the Mississippi River in canoes, pirogues (hollowed-out logs), or flatboats. During the 1800’s, colorful paddle-wheel steamboats brought cotton down the river to New Orleans and Baton Rouge for shipment throughout the world. Today, tugboats push chains of river barges more than 1,000 feet (300 meters) long. New Orleans, Louisiana’s largest city, ranks among the world’s busiest ports. Ocean ships can travel about 250 miles (400 kilometers) up the river to Baton Rouge, the state capital.
White-columned mansions that were built before the American Civil War (1861-1865) symbolize Louisiana’s past as a leader of the Old South. Oil and natural-gas wells are an important part of the landscape today. They represent Louisiana’s greatest source of wealth.
The life of Louisiana is based on a mixture of many peoples, cultures, and customs. The influence of the early French and Spanish settlers can be seen throughout the state, especially in the south. There live Creoles, descendants of the original settlers, and Cajuns, some of whose French ancestors came from Canada. Louisiana’s colonial heritage is also reflected in the term it uses for its largest units of local government. Louisiana is the only U.S. state that calls its counties parishes.
Millions of tourists visit Louisiana each year. Large crowds come to New Orleans for the annual Mardi Gras celebration, which features spectacular parades and other festivities. Tourists are also attracted by the city’s historic French Quarter, much of which has the charm of an old European town. They also listen to New Orleans-style jazz, in the area known as the Cradle of Jazz. The state’s plentiful wildlife lures nature lovers and people who enjoy hunting and fishing.
Louisiana was named by the French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle. He traveled down the Mississippi River in 1682 and claimed for France all the land drained by the Mississippi and its tributary river systems. La Salle named the region Louisiana in honor of the French king, Louis XIV. A nickname for Louisiana is the Pelican State, because of the brown pelicans found along the coast of the state. Louisiana is also known as the Bayou State, because of its many bayous (slow-moving inlets or outlets of lakes and rivers).
People
Population.
The 2020 United States census reported that Louisiana had 4,657,757 people. The population had increased about 3 percent over the 2010 figure, 4,533,372. According to the 2020 census, Louisiana ranks 25th in population among the 50 states.
About 85 percent of the people of Louisiana live in metropolitan areas (see Metropolitan area). These areas are Alexandria, Baton Rouge, Hammond, Houma-Bayou Cane-Thibodaux, Lafayette, Lake Charles, Monroe, New Orleans-Metairie, Shreveport-Bossier City, and Slidell-Mandeville-Covington.
The state has 15 incorporated cities with more than 20,000 people. New Orleans is the largest city. Other large cities, in order of population, include Baton Rouge, Shreveport, Lafayette, Lake Charles, Kenner, and Bossier City. Large unincorporated areas include Marrero, Metairie, and Prairieville.
Louisianians often think of their state as having two parts—a French, Roman Catholic south and an Anglo-Saxon, Protestant north. Many southern Louisianians are descendants of the original settlers. They are called Creoles. Others, called Cajuns, are descendants of French settlers from Acadia, which was a region of eastern Canada. Most northern Louisianians are of Anglo-Saxon descent. Their ancestors were pioneers who came from neighboring states. African Americans make up about 30 percent of the population of Louisiana.
The culture of the early French and Spanish settlers still has an important influence in southern Louisiana. Many of the people there speak both French and English. Until the early 1900’s, state laws and official notices appeared in both languages. Two major styles of southern Louisiana cooking are Creole and Cajun. Some well-known dishes include gumbo (a seafood soup often cooked with okra), jambalaya (rice mixed with bite-sized pieces of sausage and chicken), bisque (a thick and spicy soup usually made with crawfish), and etouffe (a seafood stew served on rice). Beignets, also called French Market doughnuts, are small square pastries that are deep-fried and covered with powdered sugar. Pralines, made of sugar and pecans, are a popular candy. Traditionally, Louisianians drink strong, dark-roasted coffee. Many New Orleanians flavor their coffee with chicory.
Schools.
Louisiana’s first schools were established in New Orleans during the early French rule of the area. Capuchin friars founded the first school about 1725. In 1727, Ursuline nuns started a girls’ school that still exists. The Spanish colonial government opened the first public school in 1772. However, the wealthier colonists preferred to send their children to private schools. Some wealthy people sent their sons to colleges in Europe or in the northern colonies. Many girls attended the Ursuline nuns’ school or other local private schools. 
The Constitution of 1845 created the office of state superintendent of education. Alexander Dimitry, the first superintendent of Louisiana, set up a statewide public school system. The state Constitution of 1898 provided the first effective financial support of the school system. The Constitution gave parish school districts the power to issue bonds in order to obtain educational funds.
A state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education controls public elementary and secondary schools and vocational technical institutes. Most board members are elected, but a few are appointed by the governor. A state superintendent of education, appointed by the board, administers the board’s policies.
Louisiana has 69 local school districts. These districts consist of the state’s 64 parishes plus four cities—Baker, Bogalusa, Central, Monroe, and Zachary—that operate their own school systems. The voters of each district elect a school board, and the school board appoints a superintendent. Louisiana law requires children 7 to 17 years of age to attend school.
Libraries.
A public subscription library was set up in New Orleans in 1805. By 1920, the state had only five free public libraries. In 1925, the State Library of Louisiana in Baton Rouge began organizing parishwide public library systems, which now serve all 64 parishes. Louisiana has many academic and specialized libraries.
Museums.
Louisiana’s Civil War Museum at Confederate Memorial Hall in New Orleans focuses on Louisiana’s role in the American Civil War. Founded in 1891, it is the state’s oldest continually operating museum. The Louisiana State Museum is housed in a number of structures, including several historic properties in the New Orleans French Quarter. Among these buildings is the Cabildo, a former seat of the Spanish government, which contains historic paintings, decorative arts, and photographs. In addition, the Old U.S. Mint contains displays about jazz, and the Presbytere has interactive exhibits about Mardi Gras. The state museum also includes a history and culture museum in Baton Rouge, an aviation and lumber industry museum in Patterson, the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame & Northwest Louisiana History Museum in Natchitoches, and the E. D. White Historic Site in Thibodaux. The National World War II Museum in New Orleans contains interactive exhibits about the Allies’ victory in World War II (1939-1945).
Visitor’s guide
Millions of tourists visit Louisiana every year. New Orleans, with its famous French Quarter, or Vieux Carré (Old Square), is the chief tourist attraction. The state’s many other attractions include Acadiana, the homeland of the Cajuns, and elegant old plantation homes. Louisiana has abundant wildlife, rolling hills, and marshy lowlands to delight hunters and photographers. Fishing enthusiasts catch freshwater fish in lakes and rivers, and charter boats take them along the Gulf Coast in search of saltwater fish.
Visitors from all over the world come to New Orleans for the city’s famous Mardi Gras celebration. Mardi Gras is the climax of the carnival season, which begins in January and includes many dances and parties throughout the following weeks. The Mardi Gras celebration lasts about two weeks and ends on Shrove Tuesday, also called Mardi Gras Day, the day before the Christian observance of Lent begins. It features grand parades of beautiful floats and elaborate costume balls. In addition to New Orleans, a number of other cities and towns in Louisiana have Mardi Gras celebrations. See Mardi Gras. 
Land and climate
Much of Louisiana was once part of an ancient bay of the Gulf of Mexico. The Mississippi and other rivers flowing from the north brought huge amounts of silt (particles of earth) to the bay. This action over thousands of years built up the land area to its present size.
Land regions.
Louisiana has three main land regions. All are part of the fertile lowland that lies along the Gulf Coast of the United States. These regions are (1) the East Gulf Coastal Plain, (2) the Mississippi Alluvial Plain, and (3) the West Gulf Coastal Plain.
The East Gulf Coastal Plain
in Louisiana covers the area east of the Mississippi River and north of Lake Pontchartrain. It rises gradually from marshes in the west and south to low, rolling hills in the north. The British and the Spanish once claimed most of this region as part of the territory of West Florida. The parishes in the area are still called the Florida parishes.
The Mississippi Alluvial Plain
lies along the lower Mississippi River. In Louisiana, it reaches from the Arkansas state line to the Gulf of Mexico. The plain has Louisiana’s most fertile soil.
Broad, low shoulders of land parallel the river as it winds down the plain. Louisianians call the slightly higher field atop the shoulders natural levees. The natural levees slope away from the river to backswamps, which are great stretches of clay and silt. The backswamps have several ancient channels of the Mississippi, far from its present course.
The Mississippi Delta was formed of silt brought to the river’s mouth. It covers about 13,000 square miles (33,700 square kilometers)—about a fourth of Louisiana’s total area.
The West Gulf Coastal Plain
includes all Louisiana west of the Mississippi Alluvial Plain. At the southern end of the plain, low sand ridges called barrier beaches lie along the Gulf of Mexico. Behind these beaches, marshes stretch inland for about 20 miles (32 kilometers). Beneath the marshes and the coastal and offshore waters are large underground formations called salt domes. These domes cap great deposits of salt. Pools of natural gas and petroleum are trapped along the sides of the salt deposits. Sulfur is sometimes found in the top of the domes between the salt and the upper crust.
North of the marshlands, the gently rolling Louisiana prairies—about 60 miles (100 kilometers) wide—reach westward across the plain to Texas. North of the prairies, the land rises gradually as it stretches toward Arkansas. The highest point in Louisiana is 535-foot (163-meter) Driskill Mountain, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) from the Arkansas line.
Coastline.
Louisiana has a general coastline of 397 miles (639 kilometers) along the Gulf. But the marshy coast has been made extremely uneven by silt deposits. As a result, Louisiana’s tidal shoreline—including bays, offshore islands, and river mouths—is 7,721 miles (12,426 kilometers) long. Among the states, only Alaska and Florida have longer tidal shorelines.
Salt water from the Gulf of Mexico enters the coastal waters through canals. It kills many of the freshwater marsh plants that help hold coastal soils in place. Large amounts of these soils wash away. About 35 square miles (91 square kilometers) of Louisiana’s coastal land erodes annually.
Rivers, bayous, and lakes.
The waters of all the rivers in Louisiana find their way to the Gulf of Mexico. The Mississippi is Louisiana’s most important river (see Mississippi River). Other important rivers in the state include the Atchafalaya, Black, Calcasieu, Ouachita, Pearl, Red, and Sabine.
The silt carried by Louisiana’s rivers has raised the riverbeds. This action has made the Mississippi and other rivers higher than the nearby backswamps. As a result, water from major floods on the Mississippi could cover about a third of Louisiana. The chief natural drains of overflow water are the bayous (slow-moving inlets or outlets of lakes and rivers). Louisiana has many bayous, especially in the Mississippi Delta. See Bayou.
Since colonial times, people have built levees along Louisiana’s rivers to help control the floodwaters. Levees now stretch along about 1,650 miles (2,660 kilometers) of the rivers. The Bonnet Carré Spillway on the Mississippi and floodways built along the Atchafalaya River provide further flood control. They can be opened to carry off high water when it threatens to flow over the levees. See Levee.
Louisiana has 4,433 square miles (11,481 square kilometers) of inland water. The largest lake, Lake Pontchartrain, covers 625 square miles (1,619 square kilometers). It is a brackish (part saltwater) lake. The state’s many saltwater lakes were once extensions of the sea that became cut off by ridges of sand or deposits of silt. Louisiana’s many freshwater lakes include oxbow lakes. These crescent-shaped lakes, also known as cutoff meanders, used to be curves of rivers that became cut off from the main streams. Many of them lie along the western side of the Mississippi River north of Baton Rouge.
Plant and animal life.
Forests cover about half of Louisiana. The trees include baldcypresses, magnolias, oaks, longleaf pines, and shortleaf pines. Spanish moss hangs from baldcypresses and oak trees. Azaleas, camellias, honeysuckle, jasmine, lilies, and orchids grow in the state.
Wildlife thrives in Louisiana. Rabbits are plentiful and the northwestern hills have many gray foxes and beavers. White-tailed deer and wild cats roam wooded swamps. Minks, muskrats, opossums, raccoons, skunks, and wild hogs live in many wooded lowlands. Many alligators and beaverlike rodents called nutrias live in the coastal bayous and marshes. Louisiana has about 900,000 acres (364,200 hectares) of wildlife-refuge areas.
Birds include doves, egrets, herons, quails, and wild turkeys. The brown pelican, Louisiana’s state bird, lives in the coastal marshes, where almost half the wild ducks and geese in North America spend the winter.
Louisiana’s freshwater fish include bass, catfish, gaspergou (also called freshwater drumfish), and sunfish. Giant rays, menhaden, pompanos, and tarpons are found in the Gulf of Mexico. Great numbers of blue crab, oysters, and shrimp thrive along the coast.
Climate.
Most of Louisiana has a hot, humid, subtropical climate. It is one of the wettest states, with a yearly average of 57 inches (145 centimeters) of precipitation. Southern Louisiana has an average January temperature of 53 °F (12 °C) and a July average of 83 °F (28 °C). The northern part of the state has an average January reading of 46 °F (8 °C) and a July average of 83 °F (28 °C). Louisiana’s lowest recorded temperature, –16 °F (–27 °C), was at Minden on Feb. 13, 1899. The highest temperature on record was 114 °F (46 °C), at Plain Dealing on Aug. 10, 1936. Hurricanes sometimes strike the coastal areas of Louisiana, causing loss of life and property. 
Economy
From retail trade to real estate, service industries are the fastest growing sector of Louisiana’s economy. As a group, they are the state’s leading employer. Manufacturing and mining are also important economic activities in the state. Louisiana ranks high among the states in value of annual mineral production. It is one of the leading states in the production of natural gas and petroleum.
Natural resources
of Louisiana include fertile soils, plentiful deposits of oil and gas, and thick forests.
Soil.
Rich alluvial soil (soil deposited by rivers) covers about a third of Louisiana. Silt from the Mississippi River forms a rich, dark soil. The Red River deposits reddish-brown soil along its banks. Peat and muck soils are found in coastal marshes. The prairies in southwestern Louisiana have clay and clay loam.
Minerals.
Louisiana is a leading state in known reserves of natural gas and petroleum. Many of these reserves lie in a narrow belt across southern Louisiana, part of an underground region called the Tuscaloosa Trend. This region also extends beneath portions of Texas, Mississippi, and the Gulf of Mexico. Rich petroleum deposits lie under most of Louisiana and extend into the gulf. The best-developed petroleum deposits are in southern Louisiana and the Gulf. Large gas fields lie in the state’s northern section, but production is heaviest in the southern section and in the Gulf. The southern section also has huge deposits of salt and sulfur.
Forests
cover about half the state. In New Orleans, the United States Forest Service operates one of the country’s largest forest-experimentation stations. More than 150 kinds of trees grow in Louisiana, including baldcypresses, magnolias, oaks, and pines.
Service industries,
taken together, account for the largest part of Louisiana’s employment and its gross domestic product—the total value of all goods and services produced in the state in a year. Most service industries are concentrated in the state’s metropolitan areas.
Baton Rouge, the state capital, is the center of government activities. Baton Rouge and New Orleans are the centers of the finance, insurance, and real estate sector. Louisiana’s financial firms receive much income from petroleum and gas companies. Baton Rouge and New Orleans are also the primary centers of wholesale and retail trade in Louisiana. The state’s restaurants and hotels benefit from the millions of tourists who flock to New Orleans each year. Many health care facilities also operate in Baton Rouge and New Orleans. 
See Louisiana (Communication) (Transportation).
Water transportation is of great importance in Louisiana. New Orleans and Baton Rouge are two of the busiest ports in the United States. A number of large shipping firms are based in these two cities.
Manufacturing.
Louisiana is an important manufacturing state. The processing of petroleum and coal products is one of Louisiana’s leading manufacturing activities. Petroleum refineries provide nearly all of the income for this industry. Almost all of Louisiana’s petroleum refineries operate in the southern part of the state.
The production of chemicals is also an important manufacturing activity. The Baton Rouge, Lake Charles, and New Orleans areas are the chief chemical production centers. The state’s chemical products include fertilizers, pesticides, petrochemicals (chemicals made from petroleum), plastics, and soap.
Fabricated metal products, food products, and transportation equipment are also made in Louisiana. Fabricated metal products are mainly produced in the Shreveport area and in south-central Louisiana. The state’s leading processed foods include baked goods, coffee, poultry products, soft drinks, and sugar. The Baton Rouge, Lafayette, and New Orleans areas are the leading food-processing centers. Shipbuilding is the most important transportation equipment industry. Factories in Louisiana also produce aircraft, automobile and truck parts, missile parts, and truck trailers.
Mining.
Louisiana’s chief mined products are natural gas and petroleum. These products account for most of the state’s mining income. Oil wells operate mainly in the southern marshlands and the Shreveport area. Many offshore oil wells have been drilled in the Gulf of Mexico. Large natural gas fields lie near Monroe and Shreveport. But production is heaviest in southern Louisiana and offshore in the gulf. Wells in the Gulf of Mexico produce far more oil and gas than do wells onshore.
Other mined products include salt, and sand and gravel. Most of the salt mines are in the coastal marshes. Sand and gravel are mined throughout the state. Louisiana also produces clays, coal, and crushed stone.
Agriculture.
Farmland covers about a fourth of Louisiana’s land area. Crops account for over half of Louisiana’s farm income. Sugar cane is one of the leading crop products in the state. Farmers grow sugar cane mainly in the areas south of Baton Rouge and Lafayette.
Other important crops grown in Louisiana include corn, cotton, rice, and soybeans. Most of Louisiana’s corn and cotton is grown in the northeastern part of the state. Many rice farms lie between Lake Charles and Lafayette. Large numbers of soybean farms lie in a region that runs from the northeast corner of the state south to Lafayette. Sweet potatoes are the most valuable vegetable crop. Pecans are the leading nut crop.
Broilers (young, tender chickens), a leading livestock product, are raised in the northern part of the state. The raising of beef and dairy cattle is also important. Beef cattle are raised throughout the state. Many dairy farms lie north of Lake Pontchartrain. Louisiana farms also produce eggs and hogs. Commercial fish farms in the state produce catfish and crayfish (called crawfish in Louisiana).
Fishing industry.
Louisiana ranks among the leading states in commercial fishing. Shrimp is the most important fishing product, and Louisiana is a leading state in the production of shrimp. The state is also a leading producer of crabs, crayfish, menhaden, and oysters. Other important products include catfish, snapper, and tuna. The state’s main fishing ports include Cameron, Empire-Venice, and Intracoastal City. 
Electric power and utilities.
Plants that burn natural gas provide over half of the state’s electric power. Coal-burning plants and nuclear plants provide most of the rest.
Transportation.
The Mississippi and other rivers of Louisiana have been both an aid and a barrier to transportation in the state. During the early years, riverboats provided the chief means for moving people and products. But the rivers were also major obstacles to the construction of highways and railroads.
To solve this problem, the state built bridges over the smaller rivers during the 1930’s. But until 1935, ferryboats were the only means of getting cars and trains across the Mississippi. The Huey P. Long Bridge, which opened in 1935 near New Orleans, was the first bridge entirely within the state to cross the Mississippi. Today, bridges also cross the river at Baton Rouge, Delta, Donaldsonville, Gramercy, Luling, Mound, and Vidalia. The state opened the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in 1956. The bridge, one of the world’s longest, has a total length of about 24 miles (39 kilometers) and connects New Orleans with St. Tammany Parish to the north. Twin bridges called the Crescent City Connection link the heart of New Orleans with the Mississippi’s west bank.
Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, in Kenner, is the state’s busiest airport. The Pontchartrain Railroad was the first railroad west of the Allegheny Mountains. It began operating in 1829, between New Orleans and Lake Pontchartrain. Today, rail lines provide freight service on thousands of miles of track in the state.
Louisiana has an extensive system of roads and highways. Two east-west interstate highways cross the state, and three run north and south.
Most of Louisiana’s port activities take place near New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Lake Charles. The Port of South Louisiana, at Laplace, is one of the leading U.S. ports in total cargo tonnage handled. Baton Rouge is the most inland deepwater port on the Mississippi River. It lies about 235 miles (380 kilometers) from the Gulf of Mexico, but ships can travel up the river and dock.
Louisiana has thousands of miles of navigable rivers and other waterways. The Gulf Intracoastal Waterway provides a sheltered east-west route across the coastal marshes. From 1963 until its closure in 2009, the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet (MRGO) provided a direct route between New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico. 
Communication.
The first newspaper in Louisiana was established at New Orleans in 1794 by Louis Duclot. This French-language journal, Le Moniteur de la Louisiane (The Louisiana Monitor), was the only newspaper in the region until 1803. That year, Louisiana’s first English-language newspaper, the New Orleans Union, was started. Today, leading newspapers include The Times of Shreveport, The Advocate of Baton Rouge, and The Advocate of New Orleans.
Government
Constitution.
The present Constitution of Louisiana was adopted in 1974. An amendment to the Constitution may be proposed by the Legislature or by a constitutional convention. The Legislature, by a two-thirds vote of each house, may call a constitutional convention. An amendment proposed in the state Senate or House of Representatives must be approved by two-thirds of both houses. An amendment proposed by the Legislature or a constitutional convention must be approved in a statewide election.
Executive.
The governor serves a four-year term. The governor is limited to two terms in a row, but can serve an unlimited number of terms. The governor can veto any bill passed by the Legislature. The Legislature can override the veto by a two-thirds vote in each house.
The voters also elect to four-year terms the lieutenant governor, secretary of state, attorney general, treasurer, commissioner of insurance, and commissioner of agriculture.
Legislature
consists of a Senate of 39 members and a House of Representatives of 105 members. Voters in each of the state’s 39 senatorial districts elect one senator. Voters in each of the 105 representative districts elect one representative. Senators and representatives serve four-year terms and may serve no more than three terms in a row in the same house. 
In even-numbered years, regular sessions of both houses begin on the second Monday in March and may run 60 legislative days. Regular sessions in odd-numbered years begin on the second Monday in April and may run 45 legislative days. At the sessions in odd-numbered years, legislators consider only financial matters. Special sessions may run only 30 days.
Courts.
Louisiana is the only state in which judges do not decide cases chiefly on the basis of common law. Under the common-law system, rulings are determined by previous court decisions and the people’s customs. Louisiana judges decide civil cases on the basis of a code (set of rules). The code is based largely on France’s Napoleonic code. See Code Napoleon; Common law.
Louisiana’s highest court is the Supreme Court, which hears both civil and criminal cases. The Supreme Court has a chief justice and six associate justices, all elected to 10-year terms. The associate justice with the longest service becomes the chief justice. The court system also includes 5 courts of appeal and 43 district courts.
Local government.
Louisiana is the only state that calls its counties parishes. The parishes arose as administrative units of the Roman Catholic Church during Spanish rule of the area. Under the Constitution of 1845, Louisiana dropped its county organization, and the parishes took over the counties’ functions. Louisiana now has 64 parishes. Most of them have a central governing body called the police jury, which resembles a county board of commissioners. The members of each police jury elect one of their number as president. Most police jurors and other parish officials are elected to four-year terms.
Louisiana has many incorporated cities, towns, and villages. Almost all of them have a mayor-council form of government.
Revenue.
Taxation provides about 40 percent of the state government’s general revenue (income). Most of the rest comes from federal grants and royalties (shares of profits) from mineral production. The most important taxes in Louisiana include a general sales tax, a motor fuel use tax, a personal income tax, and a severance tax on mineral production.
Politics.
The Democratic Party controlled Louisiana politics throughout most of the state’s history. The Republican Party gained strength during the 1950’s and 1960’s.
In 1972, David C. Treen became the first Republican to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Louisiana since the 1880’s. In 1979, Treen became the first Republican to be elected governor of the state since the 1870’s.
Democratic candidates carried the state in all presidential elections from 1880 through 1944. Since then, Republican presidential candidates have won the state’s electoral votes more often than Democratic candidates have.
History
Early days.
Before Europeans arrived in what is now Louisiana, early groups of Indigenous (native) people occupied the area. These native peoples lived in fortified villages that often centered around mounds and other earthworks (see Mound builders). Many of them died from diseases introduced by the Europeans. The survivors organized into a number of smaller nations, including the Atakapa, Caddo, Chitimacha, Choctaw, Houma, and Tunica. They lived mainly in villages on the banks of rivers and bayous.
Exploration.
In 1541, Hernando de Soto led a group of Spanish conquistadors (conquerors) into the lower Mississippi Valley in a useless search for gold. The failure of the expedition and de Soto’s death in 1542 discouraged further Spanish exploration of the region.
In the 1680’s, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, explored the Mississippi River south to its mouth at the Gulf of Mexico. On April 9, 1682, he claimed and named all the land drained by the Mississippi and its tributary river systems for the king of France, Louis XIV. La Salle launched a second expedition in 1684 but failed to reach the river. France then temporarily abandoned Louisiana. See La Salle, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de.
French Louisiana.
In 1699, French-Canadian naval hero Pierre Le Moyne, Sieur d’Iberville, reclaimed the area for France. He explored the lower Mississippi River and established Fort Maurepas on the Gulf Coast at what is now Ocean Springs, Mississippi.
Later that year, Iberville’s brother Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, encountered an English expedition at a bend in the lower Mississippi River. He bluffed the captain into thinking that the French already had a well-established settlement farther up the river, and the expedition retreated. The French built a fort near what is now Phoenix, Louisiana, to guard the lower Mississippi from future English threats. See Bienville, Sieur de.
Iberville governed Louisiana until his death in 1706. Bienville then took command. In 1712, the French king, desperate to economize, transferred control of the colony to a wealthy French merchant, Antoine Crozat. Antoine de Lamothe Cadillac, who became governor, sent Louis Juchereau de St. Denis to build a fort on the Red River. That post at Natchitoches, established in 1714, became the first permanent settlement in Louisiana. 
Crozat’s colony failed to become profitable. In 1717, control was transferred to John Law, a Scottish adventurer with a banking background. Law chose Bienville as governor. In 1718, Bienville began construction of New Orleans. In 1720, however, Law’s company went bankrupt. The company had initially attracted a great number of French investors but failed when many investors demanded quick profits (see Mississippi Scheme). The Louisiana colony returned to royal control in 1731.
Beginning in the early 1700’s, Black Africans were brought to the area and enslaved. In 1724, Louisiana adopted a set of laws called the Code Noir (Black Code) to control the enslaved people.
By the Treaty of Fontainebleau in 1762, France secretly gave New Orleans and all territory west of the Mississippi to Spain, a French ally. By the Treaty of Paris in 1763, France surrendered Canada and all remaining French territories in North America to Britain. The British also acquired Spanish Florida. Britain divided the Gulf Coast territories into East Florida and West Florida.
Spanish Louisiana.
Some French settlers drove out the colony’s first Spanish governor in 1768. But Spain regained control in 1769. Spain began to develop the colony by offering land grants to bring in settlers.
From the 1760’s to the 1790’s, over 4,000 French settlers arrived from Acadia, a region in eastern Canada. British soldiers had driven them from their homeland. The Acadians settled in southwestern Louisiana, chiefly along Bayous Teche and Lafourche. They made a living by fishing and farming. Their descendants came to be known as Cajuns. Other newcomers to the colony included people of French descent from the Caribbean area and immigrants from Spain and from the Canary Islands, a Spanish province. See Acadia. 
During the American Revolution (1775-1783), Spain secretly allowed agents of the Continental Congress to supply the Continental Army from New Orleans. In 1779, Bernardo de Gálvez, the governor of Spanish Louisiana, led attacks on British forts in West Florida and claimed the area for Spain. He allowed the British settlers there to remain as colonists under Spain.
Louisiana expanded and prospered under Spanish rule. The government encouraged business and commerce, rebuilt New Orleans into a Spanish city of brick and ironwork, and defeated uprisings by enslaved people. Two developments in the 1790’s contributed to Louisiana’s growing wealth. Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin made cotton-growing profitable. Production of sugar cane boomed after New Orleans plantation owner Étienne de Boré successfully began granulating sugar.
Territorial days.
In 1800, Napoleon Bonaparte, who had risen to power in France, forced Spain to return the territories France had given away by treaty in 1762. But the army that Napoleon sent to take over the Louisiana territory was destroyed in Haiti by a slave revolt and by tropical disease. France sold the land to the United States for about $15 million. The United States took possession on Dec. 20, 1803. See Louisiana Purchase. 
In 1804, the U.S. Congress divided the huge territory. The lower Mississippi area became the Territory of Orleans. The territory included most of what is now the state of Louisiana. W. C. C. Claiborne was named territorial governor.
In September 1810, American settlers in Spanish West Florida, revolted and formed the Republic of West Florida. United States forces occupied the area, which the United States claimed as a completion of the Louisiana Purchase. The area came to be called the Florida parishes.
Statehood.
The Territory of Orleans and the Florida parishes became Louisiana, which was made a state on April 30, 1812. Claiborne was elected the first governor of the state, and New Orleans became the first capital. The new state Constitution restricted voting rights to wealthy, white male property owners. 
A period of commercial expansion began in 1812, when the steamboat New Orleans completed the first trip down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Mississippi soon became the chief shipping waterway of the inland United States.
The War of 1812 (1812-1815) started soon after Louisiana became a state. In December 1814 and January 1815, a large and powerful British army tried to capture New Orleans. General Andrew Jackson and his small force defeated the British. The final clash of the Battle of New Orleans took place on the morning of Jan. 8, 1815. Unknown to both sides, the battle took place two weeks after negotiators had signed a peace treaty in Ghent, Belgium (then part of the Netherlands). See Jackson, Andrew (Glory at New Orleans). 
Thousands of settlers and people they had enslaved had begun arriving in Louisiana after the 1803 purchase, and the stream continued after the war. New Orleans, because of its location on the Mississippi River, began to develop into one of the busiest ports in North America. Trade expanded further during the 1830’s after Henry Miller Shreve, a steamboat builder and operator, cleared obstructions from the Red River. Profits from cotton and sugar cane production during this period made Louisiana one of the richest states in the Union. 
Not all settlers shared in the prosperity. Many of them were not slaveholders, and they cared for their own small farms. Poor white men received the right to vote in the Constitution of 1845. But the Constitution of 1852 gave slave-owning parishes more representation in the legislature.
The American Civil War (1861-1865).
Louisiana seceded (withdrew) from the Union on Jan. 26, 1861, and on March 21 joined the Confederacy. The American Civil War began on April 12.
In April 1862, a Union naval squadron under David G. Farragut bombarded the lower Mississippi River forts guarding New Orleans. On May 1, 1862, Union soldiers under General Benjamin F. Butler occupied the city without a battle and remained in control throughout the war. Union naval forces steamed upriver, forcing the evacuation of the capital at Baton Rouge. These forces helped to defeat the Confederate attempt to retake the city in August 1862.
Other major Civil War engagements in Louisiana included the siege at Port Hudson, a small town on the Mississippi River north of Baton Rouge. Confederate forces surrendered to Union General Nathaniel P. Banks in early July 1863 after holding out for more than six weeks. In 1864, Banks launched an invasion up the Red River against Confederate-held north Louisiana but was badly defeated on April 8 in the Battle of Mansfield.
Reconstruction.
Louisiana suffered many casualties and enormous destruction during the war and was bankrupt when the war ended. The state, occupied by federal troops, was readmitted to the Union on June 25, 1868. That year, Northern Republican Henry Clay Warmoth took office as governor. He won election under a new Army-imposed Constitution that gave freedmen (formerly enslaved men) the right to vote. However, the Constitution took the vote away from white Louisianians who had fought for the Confederacy.
During Reconstruction, new taxes were imposed, and political corruption became widespread. Some people joined such secret white organizations as the Ku Klux Klan. Klan members terrorized Black people to keep them from voting and exercising other rights.
President Rutherford B. Hayes withdrew the federal troops from Louisiana in 1877 and ended Reconstruction there. Through the late 1800’s, the state slowly began to recover from the war’s ruin. But the sharecropping system that replaced the plantation economy trapped many Black and poor white people in deepening debt and near-slavery. The white Democrats who controlled the state consistently denied or miscounted the votes of Black Americans. The Constitution of 1898 deprived poor white and Black Louisianians of the right to vote.
Growth of commerce and industry.
Railroads expanded rapidly in Louisiana, and New Orleans gained increasing importance as a national port. The discovery of great mineral and chemical resources in the early 1900’s led to considerable industrial development and many local improvements. In 1901, oil was discovered near Jennings and White Castle. Natural gas was found near Monroe in 1916. Great fields of natural gas, petroleum, and sulfur attracted many new industries. The state’s vast forests attracted Northern timber companies, but the companies stripped the forests almost bare. Progressive Democratic governors began to spend tax revenues to improve roads and schools.
In 1927, a disastrous Mississippi River flood struck Louisiana, threatening New Orleans and the lower river communities. As a result, the federal government joined Louisiana to start building vast flood control projects.
Huey P. Long.
In 1928, a time when there was widespread poverty among farmers and laborers, Huey P. Long was elected Louisiana’s governor by promising to expand state services. Long financed his vigorous programs of public works and social welfare with state bonds and increased taxes on oil and gas production. He extended state roads and bridges, enlarged the state university, built a 34-story State Capitol and a new governor’s mansion, offered free medical care, and provided free textbooks to schoolchildren. See Long (Huey Pierce Long). 
Long’s reforms brought civic corruption along with social improvements. Long, whose nickname was the “Kingfish,” became practically a dictator. He served one term as governor and began a term as U.S. senator. He planned to run for U.S. president but was assassinated in 1935.
In 1939, federal prosecutors convicted many leaders of Long’s administration for fraud and other crimes. An anti-Long reform group took control of the state government in 1940. But the Long organization quickly revived and remained a strong force in Louisiana politics.
The mid-1900’s.
During World War II (1939-1945), many Louisiana industries were part of the war effort. Shipbuilding and petrochemical production expanded rapidly, and shipping through the Port of New Orleans increased sharply. Louisiana’s economy continued to grow through the 1940’s and 1950’s, when the number of factories rose about 60 percent. Thousands of rural workers moved to the cities.
In 1963, the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet (MRGO) opened. This 76-mile (122-kilometer) canal gave shippers a 44-mile (71-kilometer) short cut between New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico. In 2009, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built a barrier to close the shipping channel, mainly because of flooding concerns. Also in 1963, workers completed a project designed to keep the Mississippi River from changing its course into the Atchafalaya River and moving away from Baton Rouge and New Orleans. The Army Corps of Engineers built a dam, floodway, and levees as part of this program.
Like many U.S. states, Louisiana faced serious racial problems in the 1950’s and 1960’s. In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka ruled that compulsory segregation of public schools was unconstitutional. Over the protests of many white Southerners, schools and public facilities began to be integrated. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 removed barriers to Black Southerners’ right to vote.
Many local white people opposed the integration initiatives of the national Democratic Party, and the Republican Party gained strength in Louisiana during the 1950’s and 1960’s. In 1956, Dwight D. Eisenhower became the first Republican to win Louisiana’s electoral votes in a presidential election since 1876. In 1964, two Republicans became the first members of their party since the 1800’s to be elected to the Louisiana House of Representatives.
But Democratic candidates also continued to win support. In 1968, Democrat Ernest (Dutch) Morial of New Orleans became the first African American since Reconstruction to win election to the Louisiana House of Representatives. In 1977, he was the first African American elected mayor of New Orleans.
The late 1900’s.
Louisiana continued to experience rapid industrial growth in the early 1980’s but faced severe decline by the mid-1980’s. Deregulation and falling oil prices hurt the state’s oil exploration and services industries, and many people were laid off. The state’s unemployment rate became the highest in the nation. Many people left the state to find jobs. A number of out-of-state employers hesitated to move businesses into a state that had a decreasing pool of educated workers.
Louisiana faced other problems as well. The state struggled to clean up toxic wastes and pollution caused by the declining petrochemical industries. Public agencies and private interests worked to prevent large portions of wetlands from being lost to coastal erosion.
In the late 1990’s, to provide revenue, the Legislature adopted a state lottery and permitted casino gambling.
The early 2000’s.
In 2003, voters elected Lieutenant Governor Kathleen Blanco governor. Blanco became the first woman to hold the office.
In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, causing more than 1,800 deaths and about 100 billion dollars in damage. More than 1,500 Louisianians died. Some small bayou towns were destroyed by high winds and flooding. In New Orleans, low-lying neighborhoods were almost completely submerged for weeks while levees were repaired and floodwaters were drained. Many thousands of people were left homeless. The restoration of public services and facilities took years to complete. 
In October 2007, Louisiana voters elected Republican U.S. Representative Bobby Jindal governor. Jindal, who took office in January 2008, became the first person of Asian Indian ancestry to be elected governor of a U.S. state.
In April 2010, an explosion on an offshore oil rig 50 miles (80 kilometers) off Louisiana left 11 people dead and caused about 200 million gallons (760 million liters) of oil to pour from an underwater well into the Gulf of Mexico. For about three months, the U.S. Coast Guard and BP, the well’s principal owner, worked to stop the flow of oil. By May, oil had reached the state’s coastal marshes and begun to harm local wildlife. The disaster also threatened the state’s fishing and tourism industries. The well was capped in July and permanently sealed in September.
In August 2016, a powerful storm system dumped more than 20 inches (51 centimeters) of rain on parts of Louisiana. Flooding devastated much of the Baton Rouge area. Across the state, 13 people were killed and thousands were left homeless.
In August 2017, Tropical Storm Harvey struck the southwestern Louisiana coast, causing widespread flooding and property damage. The storm had first made landfall in Texas as Hurricane Harvey.
Beginning in 2020, Louisiana faced major economic and social disruptions due to the spread of COVID-19. In March, authorities requested that residents practice social distancing to slow the spread of the disease. A statewide stay-at-home order was imposed later in the month, and many businesses deemed nonessential were forced to close. Many rules were relaxed later in the year, but mask mandates went into effect during periods of elevated hospitalization rates. The distribution of COVID-19 vaccines became a major focus of government efforts in 2021 and 2022. The vaccines contributed to decreases in the state’s hospitalization and death rates. The disease continued to cause severe infection, however, among unvaccinated people and people with weakened immune systems. By early 2023, more than 1.5 million cases of COVID-19 had been recorded in Louisiana and nearly 19,000 Louisianians had died from the disease.
Hurricane Ida struck southeastern Louisiana in late August 2021, causing severe flooding and property damage. The storm knocked out electric power and other utility services for hundreds of thousands of people in the New Orleans and Baton Rouge areas.
