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 \TNarvaez\t of Spain, who navigated its coast in 1528. Later, Robert Cavelier, sieur de \TLa Salle\t, 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 Louisiana is part of a sedimentary plain that slopes gently toward the Gulf of Mexico. The tilted strata that constitute this plain are pierced in the northwest and coastal area by enormous plugs of salt called salt domes. The most pronounced relief in the land surface is found in the northern hills and the area north of Lake Pontchartrain. The flattest terrain is on the coastal marshes. The dominant physical feature of the state is the Mississippi River. Five natural regions are recognizable. The coastal marshes have a relatively firm underlying surface in saltwater areas to the west and are soft in the irregular freshwater areas to the east. The gently sloping alluvial valley of the Mississippi lies toward the east, with its channels forming a delta shaped like a bird's foot. The Red River valley, running northwest to southeast, follows the Mississippi's pattern. The terraces comprise the prairies in the southwest and the flatwoods to their north. The loessial bluffs flanking the Mississippi, containing moderate relief, are also part of the terraces. The hill region, found in the north, is the largest, highest, and oldest part of the state. Drainage The most important rivers in Louisiana are the MISSISSIPPI, RED, Atchafalaya, and Ouachita. Stream patterns are usually dendritic, resembling the branches of a tree. The Mississippi flood plain, however, is lower than the natural levees along the main watercourse, and water therefore drains away from the river. As a result, tributaries of the Mississippi in the state are insignificant. Much of Louisiana's terrain is related to the Mississippi. Lakes, including an increasing number of artificial reservoirs such as Toledo Bend, are found throughout the state. Along the Mississippi and Red are a number of bayous or oxbows, formed as the rivers cut across their own meanders or when channels were cut off for flood control. False River and Raccourci Old River on the Mississippi are examples. Some larger lakes such as \TPontchartrain\t and Maurepas are the result of subsurface faulting. In the west, shallow lagoons that formed behind beach ridges eventually created Sabine and Calcasieu lakes. To the east, subsidence of deltaic sediments formed round lakes. At the time of Spanish exploration, logjams had dammed the Red River and its tributaries, forming temporary raft lakes. Soils Louisiana's immature transported, or alluvial, soils comprise the most fertile land. They are associated with the Mississippi flood plain. The organic marsh soils are high in natural fertility, but they are poorly drained and subject to flooding. Residual soils of the uplands are derived from older sediments and are sandy and infertile. They are used primarily for grazing and forestland. The finely grained terrace soils of the prairies are older alluvial soils underlain by a claypan layer. This stratum of clay, coupled with low relief, causes slow drainage. Flatwoods soils are older and of low fertility. Climate Louisiana's humid subtropical climate is relatively uniform throughout the state. The chief factors influencing climate are the subtropical latitude, location along the Gulf of Mexico, the continental landmass to the north, and the prevailing southerly winds. Average annual precipitation ranges from 1,175 mm (46 in) in the northwest to more than 1,625 mm (64 in) in the southeast. Although precipitation is for the most part evenly distributed throughout the year, February and March tend to be slightly wetter. Diurnal summer temperatures range from 29 deg to 35 deg C (84 deg to 95 deg F) in the afternoons to 16 deg to 24 deg C (61 deg to 75 deg F) in the early morning. Temperatures of at least 38 deg C (100 deg F) occur in almost all years. Louisiana is subject to tropical storms in summer and hurricanes in summer and fall, often accompanied by tornadoes. The cooler seasons are more variable, influenced by both cold polar air and warm tropical air. Winter temperatures fall below freezing (0 deg C or 32 deg F) every winter. Vegetation and Animal Life The number of plant species in the state is estimated at 4,500. As a result of human habitation present vegetation regions differ greatly from the original natural vegetation. Treeless fresh and saltwater marshes fringe the Gulf of Mexico, while oaks, cypress, and gums stud interior swamps. As a result of disease Spanish moss is no longer as abundant as in earlier years. Prairie grasslands in the southwest, inland from the marsh, are divided by gallery forests growing along streams. Longleaf pines grow north of the prairies in the west and north of Lake Pontchartrain in the east. The northwestern corner of the state supports drought-resistant loblolly pine, oak, and hickory. Along smaller streams dogwood, redbud, and hackberry can be found. The floodplains of the major rivers have hardwoods on the well-drained soils and cypress in the swamps. In the lower swamps, blackgum, red maple, and palmetto grow with the cypress. Bluff-land hardwoods include oaks, maple, dogwood, tulip, and hickory. Louisiana has always had abundant animal life. Squirrels, turkeys, beavers, muskrat, mink, raccoon, opossums, and alligators are common today. Nutria have increased following their introduction in the 1930s, and large numbers of armadillos and cattle egrets have migrated there from the southern areas. A large variety of fish and amphibians is found inland and in adjacent Gulf waters. Resources Louisiana's mineral resources are few in number but are economically important. Deposits of petroleum are found in the Mississippi delta area. To the west, increasing amounts of natural gas occur with petroleum. Large quantities of these minerals have also been extracted to the north, but since the 1940s drilling has increasingly moved offshore, with some rigs operating more than 95 km (60 mi) from the coast. Much of Louisiana's petroleum is associated with coastal \Lsalt dome\ls. Extraction of salt is now mostly from the domes in the southern part of the state, particularly from the Five Islands--Avery, Belle Isle, Cote Blanche, Jefferson, and Weeks. Sulfur, sand, gravel, clays, lime, shell, and gypsum are also extracted. Lignite occurs in the northwest. Because of concern for the preservation of the natural environment, a number of state environmental protection agencies have been formed. Louisiana also operates commissions for the protection of wildlife and participates in the research work of the Gulf States Marine Fisheries Commission. PEOPLE Louisiana's population increased 15.4% from 1970 to 1980, but from 1980 to 1990 growth slowed dramatically to 0.3%. The The largest cities are \TNew Orleans\t, \TBaton Rouge\t, \TShreveport\t, and \TLafayette\t. Since 1985, Louisiana has had considerable out-migration due to severe economic problems. A relatively small number of persons are foreign-born; many are Asian, and most are in New Orleans. Culturally, Louisiana is one of the most diverse states, having grown from settlement by French, Spanish, English, and American populations. Early French traits have been retained by \TCreoles\t and \TCajuns\t in southern Louisiana. A Spanish influence was added to this culture in the southern and western portions of the state. People of Celtic (Scots-Irish) descent migrated into eastern and northern Louisiana, and blacks were brought into the plantation areas. Although French is no longer widely spoken as a first language, the French Roman Catholic core of southern Louisiana may still be distinguished from the English-speaking Protestant majority of northern Louisiana and the east. Baptists form the largest Protestant denomination. Education and Health The first school in the state is believed to have been the Ursuline Convent for girls in New Orleans, dating from 1728. Public schools developed slowly until 1841, when New Orleans established free public schools supported by poll and property taxes. There are over 30 public and private institutions of higher education operating in Louisiana (see \TLouisiana, state universities of\t). Health facilities in rural areas suffer from a lack of readily available medical services. The number of active physicians per 100,000 people is below the national average; the birthrate and infant mortality rate are above average. During the 1980s the death rate declined slightly. Carville, in southeast Louisiana, is the site of the only leprosarium in the continental United States. Culture Louisiana maintains a number of cultural institutions (primarily in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Shreveport) which include art galleries, historical museums, planetariums, and historical sites. The Louisiana State Museum, housed in the Cabildo in New Orleans, is probably the most famous. Other museums include the Louisiana State Museum-Shreveport and R. W. Norton Art Gallery in Shreveport and the Louisiana Arts and Science Center in Baton Rouge. Orchestras of note include the New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Shreveport symphonies. New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Shreveport also all have opera companies. Several historic sites have been designated, including the prehistoric Indian areas of Poverty Point, northeast of Monroe, and Marksville, southeast of \TAlexandria\t; the Mansfield State Commemorative Area, a Civil War museum; and the Acadian House Museum at Longfellow-Evangeline State Commemorative Area in Saint Martinville. Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve operates three major units--Barataria; Chalmette, at the site of the Battle of New Orleans (1815); and the French Quarter--in the Greater New Orleans area. A fourth unit--the Acadian unit--is at Lafayette. There are several zoos and numerous parks around the state, and the world-class Aquarium of the Americas is in New Orleans. Many antebellum plantations are open to the public. The most notable arena for sports is the Superdome in New Orleans; when completed (1975), it was the largest U.S. structure of its kind. The most famous and widest-circulated of Louisiana's daily newspapers is the New Orleans Times-Picayune. The state has ample numbers of television as well as AM and FM stations. ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES Manufacturing The leading industries in value added by manufacture are chemicals and allied products, petroleum products, and food and food products. The worldwide oil glut of the mid-1980s was very damaging to Louisiana's economy, causing not only high unemployment in the petroleum industry but also markedly reduced state revenues from petroleum taxes. The leading centers for manufacturing in Louisiana are the largest urban hubs, particularly New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Shreveport. The state's leading manufactured or processed products, in addition to those based on petroleum, coal, and natural gas, include salt, drugs, fertilizers, processed rice, and sugar. Energy Louisiana generates almost all its power from hydrocarbons (petroleum and natural gas) extracted from within the state. There is a small nuclear-power capacity. In 1988, Louisiana's electric utilities produced approximately 56.8 billion kW h. Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishing Until World War II, Louisiana was basically an agricultural state. Since then, although agriculture remains a significant factor in the economy, the number of farms in operation has greatly decreased. The number of large farms increased markedly, however, whereas small farms nearly vanished. Major agricultural commodities include soybeans, sugar and sugarcane, rice, and cotton, along with dairy products, cattle, and calves. Specialty crops include hot peppers grown on Avery Island, which are made into Tabasco sauce, and the world's supply of pungent perique tobacco. By the 1930s the virgin forests had been depleted and the landscape scarred. Although the huge cypress and hardwood stands of the past are gone, Louisiana's climate has allowed the reforestation of rapid-growing pines to take place. Louisiana is often number one among the states in volume of fish caught. Menhaden is most important, and buffalo, catfish, flounder, and spotted sea trout are commercially significant. Crabs, crayfish, oysters, and shrimp are important in both volume and value. Louisiana's fur industry has grown in recent years with the development of a stable market for nutria (a large aquatic rodent). Tourism Tourist traffic to Louisiana is served by a number of airlines, four interstate highways, and state and federal roadways. Tourism is generally focused on the metropolitan centers, with New Orleans most important. The city attracts large numbers of Mardi Gras visitors. Some 7.3 million people visited New Orleans World's Fair between May and November 1984. The Cajun country of the southwest is a popular tourist area, and many flock to the state's numerous festivals to sample the unique cuisine. Transportation and Trade Several thousand miles of railway track cross the state, serving primarily to move freight. Approximately 300 airports serve Louisianians. The highway and road network is extensive. Foreign trade is important to Louisiana's economy; New Orleans handles the bulk of the state's overseas trade. Louisiana is a principal U. S. exporter of chemicals, petroleum, primary metals, rice, cotton, and fish products. Imports include animal, fish, and vegetable oils and fats, foodstuffs, and crude rubber. GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS Since 1812, Louisiana has operated under 11 constitutions, the most recent dating from 1974. The Louisiana legislature is bicameral, and legislative sessions are annual. Legislators are elected for concurrent terms of 4 years. Judicial power is vested in the supreme court, the courts of appeals, and the district courts. The executive branch is headed by a governor elected to a 4-year term. Other major elected state officials include the lieutenant governor, secretary of state, attorney general, and treasurer. The state is divided into 64 parishes. The original territory was divided into 12 somewhat indefinitely bounded counties, coinciding with parish boundaries established by the Roman Catholic church during colonial times. Since 1845 the term "parish" has been used for these political subdivisions. The eight parishes north of Lake Pontchartrain and east of the Mississippi, known as the Florida Parishes, were once a part of Spanish Florida. Parishes, except for the six with city-parish governments, are governed by elected bodies called police juries. From 1877 until after World War II, Louisiana was controlled by Democrats. Since the 1950s, however, Republican U.S. presidential candidates have frequently won the state's electoral votes. In 1964, for the first time in this century, two Republicans were elected to the state legislature (others followed). In 1979 a Republican, David C. Treen, was elected governor. Charles E. ("Buddy") Roemer was elected governor on the Democratic ticket in 1988 but in 1991 changed his affiliation to Republican. On Nov. 16, 1991, Democratic former governor Edwin Edwards won the gubernatorial election. HISTORY The earliest known Indian occupancy dates to perhaps 10,000 years ago. These people, probably big-game hunters, left little evidence of their habitation. A hunting and gathering economy is thought to have continued until about 2,000 years ago, when farming began. The fertile floodplains were gardened, producing squash, sunflowers, beans, and maize. The Poverty Point site, nearly 1.6 km (1 mi) across, has revealed a highly organized society dating from about 700 BC. Written accounts after the arrival of Europeans document the decline and disappearance of many Indian groups. A reasonable estimate of the Indian population in AD 1700 would be 15,000, formed of six linguistic groups: \TCaddo\t in the northwest, \TNatchez\t near the middle Mississippi, Atakapa on the prairies of the southwest, Chitimachan in the Atchafalaya Basin, Muskogean east of the Mississippi, and Tunican in the northeast. Most were sedentary village farmers who also hunted and fished. Permanent European settlement was begun by France almost 200 years after the Spanish had entered the area. Robert Cavelier, sieur de La Salle, explored the Mississippi downstream to its mouth, and he claimed the entire drainage basin for France in 1682. La Salle's efforts at colonization failed, but the French continued in their attempt to establish a permanent settlement. Eventually, the colony, which had also failed at \TBiloxi\t, moved upstream on the Mississippi to the foot of the Great Raft on the Red River, establishing the first permanent settlement in the Louisiana Territory at Natchitoches in 1714. Colonization proceeded under the direction of Pierre Le Moyne, sieur d' \TIberville\t and his brother, Jean Baptiste Le Moyne, sieur de \TBienville\t. The early history of the colony is a tragic one, as the first settlers were ill-suited to the rigors of frontier life. In 1717, France granted a monopoly on commerce to John \Tlaw\t in order to promote development of the territory. His \TMississippi Scheme\t was designed to entice investment in what he claimed was a land of fabulous mineral wealth. The scheme fell apart in 1720, with no financial rewards to the investors, but the territory gained population as a result of Law's promotion. German peasants from the Upper Rhine area contributed to the betterment of the region when they began to settle land upstream from New Orleans in the 1720s. Louisiana became a French crown colony in 1731. Plantation-grown crops included indigo, rice, and tobacco; trade was primarily by water, and the few roads ran along the levees. To this day, the arpent system, based on an old French unit of measure approximating 0.35 ha (0.85 acres), is evident in the property lines running back from the streams. In 1762, Louisiana was ceded to Spain as a result of the French and Indian War, and Great Britain gained control of Florida, which extended to the east bank of the Mississippi. At the same time, Acadians, driven from Nova Scotia by the British, began migrating to Louisiana. The Acadians settled in the eastern prairies around the present site of Saint Martinville and later along the Lower Mississippi and Bayou Lafourche. The Spanish made feeble attempts to offset the growing French population, but were eventually absorbed themselves. In 1800 they returned Louisiana to France by the Treaty of San Ildefonso. Although Napoleon I originally intended to establish a new empire in America, he sold Louisiana to the United States in 1803. The $15-million \TLouisiana Purchase\t represented about 4 cents an acre. Louisiana became the 18th state on Apr. 30, 1812, comprising the territory south of 33 deg North Latitude, which had been the Territory of Orleans. The rest became the Missouri Territory. Not until 1819, however, were the Florida Parishes and the lands west of the Red River added to form the present state boundaries. During the \TWar of\t 1812, British ships moved up the Mississippi River to New Orleans. On Jan. 8, 1815, Gen. Andrew Jackson's troops defeated the British at New Orleans. The battle ended 15 days after the Treaty of Ghent was signed, ending the war. Jean \TLafitte\t aided the American cause. By 1860 the population exceeded 700,000, and a class system based on plantations with slave labor had developed. At the same time, yeoman farmers were practicing subsistence farming--Celtic Scots-Irish in the hills and Acadians in the south. During the Civil War, the importance of the port of New Orleans and Louisiana's strategic position on the Mississippi made it an early Union target; the state's economy was devastated. Streams had been the major routes since the beginning of settlement. By the 1860 peak of steamboat travel, nearly all of the state could be reached by these craft. As railroads improved, steamboat traffic declined. Rail travel grew in the early 20th century. Much of the modern settlement of the prairies is attributable to the access of rail travel. Highway development began after the 1920s. The prairies began to change from the arpent-strip farms of the Acadians (or Cajuns, as they came to be known) and the rectangular Spanish sitio grants for ranching, to vast rice fields farmed by Midwestern migrants who arrived at the beginning of the 20th century. Louisiana had come a long way from the earliest Spanish explorers and French settlers, through the Civil War and Reconstruction. In 1928 a Winnfield lawyer, Huey Pierce Long, Jr. (see \TLong\t family), was elected governor, and from 1930 to 1935 he served as a U.S. senator. His program of road building and free schoolbooks, based on tax revenue from petroleum, appealed to the grass-roots population, but his methods became increasingly suspect. Scandals, which had begun by the mid-1930s, accelerated after Long was assassinated in 1935, but his career marked a turning point in Louisiana history. For much of the period since World War II the petroleum industry sparked the development of the state (with the notable exception of the oil slump that has taken place since the mid-1980s). By the 1960s Louisiana had become a major space-age industrial center; as industry grew, the state became urbanized. Urgent environmental problems that emerged in the 1980s, including industrial pollution, disposal of toxic waste, and erosion of the coastline, have continued into the 1990s. John W. Hall Bibliography: \TGeneral\t: Core, Lucy, and Calhoun, David, eds., The Louisiana Almanac 1984-85 (1984). DESCRIPTION AND \Tgeography\t: 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). \Tland\t AND \TPeople\t: Conrad, Glenn R., ed., The Cajuns (1983); Kniffen, Fred B., and Hilliard, Sam B., Louisiana: Its Land and People, rev. ed. (1988); Kniffen, Fred B., et al., The Historic Indian Tribes of Louisiana (1987); Post, Lauren C., Cajun Sketches from the Prairies of Southwest Louisiana (1990); Read, William A., Louisiana French, rev. ed. (1963); West, Robert C., An Atlas of Louisiana Surnames of French and Spanish Origin (1986). \Thistory\t: Carter, Hodding, Doomed Road of Empire: The Spanish Trail of Conquest (1963); Davis, Edwin A., ed., Louisiana: A Narrative History, 3d ed. (1971) and The Rivers and Bayous of Louisiana (1968); Dufour, Charles L., Ten Flags in the Wind: The Story of Louisiana (1967); Gaillardet, Frederic, Sketches of Early Texas and Louisiana, trans. by James L. Shepherd III (1966); Giraud, Marcel, A History of French Louisiana, vol. 1, trans. by Joseph C. Lambert (1974); Hair, William I., Bourbonism and Agrarian Protest: Louisiana Politics, 1877-1900 (1969); Neuman, Robert W., An Introduction to Louisiana Archaeology (1984); Kniffen, Fred B., et al., The Historic Indian Tribes of Louisiana (1987); Newton, Lewis W., The Americanization of French Louisiana (1981); O'Neill, Charles Edward, et al., Louisiana: A History, ed. by Bennett H. Wall (1984); Rushton, William F., The Cajuns: From Acadia to Louisiana (1979); Taylor, Joe G., Louisiana: A Bicentennial History (1976); Tunnell, Ted, Crucible of Reconstruction: War, Radicalism, and Race in Louisiana, 1862-1877 (1984). \Teconomics\t, \LPolitic\ls, AND \Tgovernment\t: Bolner, James, ed., Louisiana Politics: Festival in a Labyrinth (1982); Cook, Bernard A., and Watson, James R., Louisiana Labor: From Slavery to "Right-to-Work" (1985); Michels, Greg, ed., Governments of Louisiana, 1986 (1985); Reeves, Miriam G., Governors of Louisiana, 3d ed. (1980); Sindler, Allan P., Huey Long's Louisiana: State Politics, 1920-1952 (1956; repr. 1980); Taylor, Joe G., Louisiana Reconstructed, 1863-1877 (1975).