Louisiana

Land of Louis

Louisiana’s name is French. On April 9, 1682, the explorer René-Robert Cavelier, sieur de La Salle, reached the mouth of the Mississippi River, raised a marker and claimed the river and all the lands it drains for France, naming the territory La Louisiane after King Louis XIV. That claim was far larger than today’s state, reaching up the Mississippi valley to Canada.

France founded New Orleans in 1718, gave Louisiana to Spain in 1762 and took it back in 1800, and in 1803 sold the whole territory to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase. The southern part became the Territory of Orleans, and on April 30, 1812, it entered the Union as the state of Louisiana, the 18th state. April 30 is still Louisiana Day under state law.

French, Spanish and parishes

Louisiana’s colonial past shows everywhere. Its civil law tradition comes from French and Spanish law, unlike the English common law of other states. Instead of counties it has 64 parishes, a name from colonial times. And its Cajun and Creole cultures, its music and its food have spread around the world. Several state symbols reflect them: gumbo is the official state cuisine, the Cajun accordion the state instrument, and the fleur-de-lis, the old emblem of French kings, an official state symbol.

A capital that moved, and a tall Capitol

New Orleans was the capital for most of Louisiana’s early history. An 1845 constitution ordered the government moved at least sixty miles away, and Baton Rouge became the capital in 1850. The Civil War drove the government out, to Opelousas and Shreveport, and New Orleans served again through Reconstruction. Baton Rouge regained the title for good in 1882. Its Art Deco Capitol, pushed by Governor Huey Long and finished in 1932, rises 450 feet and 34 floors, making it the tallest state capitol in the country. Long was assassinated inside it in 1935. The capital page tells the story.

The Pelican State

The pelican has been Louisiana’s emblem since soon after statehood, when Governor William C. C. Claiborne put a pelican feeding its young on the state seal in place of an eagle. It is on the flag, and since 2006 the law has required it to show three drops of blood, after an eighth grader noticed that many flags left them out. The brown pelican became the state bird in 1966, and its comeback from local extinction is one of Louisiana’s great conservation stories. The state motto is “Union, Justice and Confidence.”

A menu of symbols

Louisiana has 44 official symbols, and food is a big part of the list. Besides gumbo, there is an official meat pie from Natchitoches, two official jellies, mayhaw and sugar cane, the Creole tomato, the sweet potato, the strawberry and the pecan. The crawfish is the state crustacean, the American alligator the state reptile and the Louisiana black bear the state mammal. The magnolia is the state flower and the bald cypress, the tree of the swamps, the state tree. The state song is “You Are My Sunshine,” recorded and popularized by Jimmie Davis, who later served two terms as governor. See every symbol on the Louisiana symbols page.

Land and people

Louisiana covers 52,378 square miles, 31st among the states, and more than 9,000 square miles of that is water: marsh, bays, lakes and rivers. It had about 4.62 million residents in 2025, 25th in the country, slightly fewer than in 2020. It borders Texas, Arkansas and Mississippi and faces the Gulf to the south, with the Mississippi River delta reaching far into it. New Orleans, with about 362,000 people, is the largest city, followed by Baton Rouge, Shreveport and Lafayette.