State of the USA (123,677 km 2 with 4,410,796 inhabitants in 2008). Capital Baton Rouge. It extends to the west of the Mississippi, between this and the Sabine river, which form its longitudinal boundaries; to the north the 33 ° lat. N, to south the state includes the Mississippi delta and faces the Gulf of Mexico on a front of 500 km. Louisiana has a perfectly flat territory. Along the coast there are numerous lagoons. The climate is subtropical.
The population of Louisiana, ethnically very heterogeneous, is largely of French, Spanish and African American origin. The cultivation of cotton has been overtaken in economic importance by that of soybeans and cattle breeding; rice, sugar cane, corn, fodder and fruit are also produced. Fishing (crustaceans, oysters) and the exploitation of forests are important, but above all that of mineral resources. The industry is developed in the branches of petroleum refining, chemical, metallurgical, mechanical, food and cotton processing. New Orleans it is the main port of the South of the USA and the second of the entire federation.
According to abbreviationfinder, the coast of Louisiana was discovered by L. Vásquez (1520) and by P. Narváez (1528). R.-R. de La Salle, who arrived in 1682 at the mouth of the river on the Gulf of Mexico, gave the entire Mississippi valley the name of Louisiana in honor of Louis XIV and occupied it in the name of the Crown. In 1700 P. Lemoyne d’Iberville established the colony of Biloxi and extended French dominion to the north French possession was limited to the south by the Río del Norte, to the east halfway between Mobile and Pensacola. In 1712 the colony was entrusted to A. Crozat, then to the Compagnia delle Indie, who in 1723 returned it to the crown. The attempt to join the Louisiana to Canada with a road was one of the causes of the war between France And England in 1756. In 1762 the west part of the Mississippi passed to Spain, the east part to England (1763). The Louisiana remained in Spain until 1800, when Napoleon had the territory ceded, under the condition of never giving it to others, which he sold to the United States in 1803 (Louisiana Purchase). The territory of Orléans organized in 1804, increased with the region to the east of the Mississippi in 1810, was annexed, as a state, to the Union in 1812. In the civil war, Louisiana rebelled in the North by voting for the order of secession (1861).
With the Louisiana Purchase, the United States acquired a vast territory (2,200,000 km 2), on which 4 States of the North American Union were established (within a century) (Arkansas, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska) and parts of others 9 (Louisiana, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota).
According to countryaah, Louisiana has the following main cities:
New Orleans
City of the USA (311.853 residents In 2008), in Louisiana, extended over the delta of the Mississippi and along its banks, 90 km from the Gulf of Mexico. The city developed between the left bank of the river (from which it is defended by strong embankments) and the Lago Pontchartrain, joined together by means of a canal, while numerous centers along the right bank (Westwego, Gretna, Algiers) are included in the metropolitan orbit. Built on a land that was once marshy and partly below sea level, it has a subtropical climate with frequent cyclones (hurricanes) during the summer (particularly violent, in 2005, Katrina, which devastated the city). AS at the river, are the old quarters, French (Vieux Carré with the cathedral of Saint Louis) and Spanish, with building characteristics of the colonial period. The modern city, with numerous skyscrapers, stretches further west and north to the lake, crossed by a grandiose bridge (8 km).
Industrial activity plays a considerable economic role: the expanding sectors, alongside the construction sector, are represented by chemicals and shipbuilding. The business services sector is growing strongly, as well as some high-tech (electronics) activities. The role of commercial activity (cotton) and of the port (the second after that of New York, with a movement of about 40 million tons) which is the main source of life of the city; it extends on both banks of the Mississippi to its mouth (for over 200 km). Numerous and important cultural institutes, universities, literary and scientific societies, museums (New Orleans museum of art; Louisiana state museum).
Founded in 1718 by J.-B. Lemoyne de Bienville, was named Nouvelle Orléans in honor of the Duke of Orléans. The layout of the regular track was designed in 1721 by the engineers Le Blond de la Tour and Adrien de Pauger. In 1722 it became the capital of Louisiana and remained with the French until 1763, when it was ceded to Spain; returned to the French in 1800, with the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 it was sold to the USA. It was again the capital of the state from 1864 to 1882 (in 1849 the seat of the government had been transferred to Baton Rouge).
Between the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. N. was the ‘cradle’ of jazz music: the phrase N style is in fact used to designate the first collective and then individual achievements of this genre, born under the stimuli of a culture that, already tolerant towards the African traditions of slaves deportees (who gathered to play in the Place Congo, today Beauregard Square), then found fruitful ground for development in the festive presence of music on every public and private occasion, until it took on an aesthetic form achieved with K. Oliver, L. Armstrong and JR Morton. The N. style is based on the heterophonic counterpoint of the winds (cornet, clarinet, trombone) and on a rhythm section consisting of drums, double bass and banjo (later the guitar), which continued to perform harmonic-rhythmic functions even after the introduction of the piano. Due to the late phonographic recording, of the original style of the 1910s, only evidence or later elaborations remain. After the prevalence of other jazz currents, a N. revival took place from 1940 onwards.
Baton Rouge
Capital of the state of Louisiana (United States), located at 30 ° 27 ′ lat. N., and at 91 ° 11 ′ long. O., on the Mississippi River. The city had 21,782 inhabitants in 1920, 11,269 in 1900. About 40% of the population is Negro.
Baton Rouge has considerable industrial importance and owns sugar refineries, artificial ice factories, grandiose factories of the Standard Oil Company. It is a city of mainly river traffic. It owns the State University (founded 1860), a state institute for the blind and deaf and dumb, and an experimental agriculture station. It was one of the first French plants in Louisiana and played an important part in the history of the United States.
