The Louisiana Portal

The Flag of Louisiana

Louisiana (French: Louisiane [lwizjan] ; Spanish: Luisiana [lwiˈsjana]; Louisiana Creole: Lwizyàn) is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It borders Texas to the west, Arkansas to the north, and Mississippi to the east. Of the 50 U.S. states, it ranks 20th in land area and the 25th in population, with roughly 4.6 million residents. Reflecting its French heritage, Louisiana is the only U.S. state with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are equivalent to counties, making it one of only two U.S. states not subdivided into counties (the other being Alaska and its boroughs). Baton Rouge is the state's capital, and New Orleans, a French Louisiana region, is its largest city with a population of about 383,000 people. Louisiana has a coastline with the Gulf of Mexico to the south; a large part of its eastern boundary is demarcated by the Mississippi River.

Much of Louisiana's lands were formed from sediment washed down the Mississippi River, leaving enormous deltas and vast areas of coastal marsh and swamp. These contain a rich southern biota, including birds such as ibises and egrets, many species of tree frogs—such as the state recognized American green tree frog—and fish such as sturgeon and paddlefish. More elevated areas, particularly in the north, contain a wide variety of ecosystems such as tallgrass prairie, longleaf pine forest and wet savannas; these support an exceptionally large number of plant species, including many species of terrestrial orchids and carnivorous plants. Over half the state is forested.

Louisiana is situated at the confluence of the Mississippi river system and the Gulf of Mexico. Its location and biodiversity attracted various indigenous groups thousands of years before Europeans arrived in the 17th century. Louisiana has eighteen Native American tribes—the most of any southern state—of which four are federally recognized and ten are state recognized. The French claimed the territory in 1682, and it became the political, commercial, and population center of the larger colony of New France. After a brief period of Spanish rule, Louisiana was returned to France in 1801 before being purchased by the U.S. in 1803; it was admitted to the Union in 1812 as the 18th state. Following statehood, Louisiana saw an influx of settlers from the eastern U.S. as well as immigrants from the West Indies, Germany, and Ireland. It experienced an agricultural boom, particularly in cotton and sugarcane, which were cultivated primarily by slaves from Africa. As a slave state, Louisiana was one of the original seven members of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War. (Full article...)

Entries here consist of Good and Featured articles, which meet a core set of high editorial standards.
Rice in 2006

Anne Rice (born Howard Allen Frances O'Brien; October 4, 1941 – December 11, 2021) was an American author of gothic fiction, erotic literature, and bible fiction. She is best known for writing The Vampire Chronicles. She later adapted the first novel of the series into a commercially successful eponymous film, Interview with the Vampire (1994).

Born in New Orleans, Rice spent much of her early life in the city before moving to Texas, and later to San Francisco. She was raised in an observant Catholic family but became an agnostic as a young adult. She began her professional writing career with the publication of Interview with the Vampire (1976), while living in California, and began writing sequels to the novel in the 1980s. In the mid-2000s, following a publicized return to Catholicism, she published the novels Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt and Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana, fictionalized accounts of certain incidents in the life of Jesus. Several years later she distanced from organized Christianity, while remaining devoted to Jesus. She later considered herself a secular humanist. (Full article...)

Selected article - show another

The alligator snapping turtle lives throughout all of the state; Louisiana and neighboring states Arkansas and Mississippi are the only U.S. states where alligator turtles are found throughout the entire state.

The fauna of Louisiana is characterized by the region's low swamplands, bayous, creeks, woodlands, coastal marshlands and beaches, and barrier islands covering an estimated 20,000 square miles (52,000 square kilometers), corresponding to 40 percent of Louisiana's total land area. Southern Louisiana contains up to fifty percent of the wetlands found in the Continental United States, and are made up of countless bayous and creeks.

The Creole State has a humid subtropical climate, perhaps the best example of a humid subtropical climate of all the Southern United States with long, humid and hot summers and short, mild winters. The subtropical characteristics of the state are due in large part to the influence of the Gulf of Mexico, which at its farthest point is no more than 200 miles (320 kilometers) away. Louisiana's varied habitats — tidal marshes, bayous, swamps, woodlands, islands, forests, and prairies — offer a diversity of wildlife. (Full article...)

General images - load new batch

The following are images from various Louisiana-related articles on Wikipedia.

Did you know - load new batch

Related portals

Topics

Categories

Category puzzle
Category puzzle
Select [►] to view subcategories

New articles

This list was generated from these rules. Questions and feedback are always welcome! The search is being run daily with the most recent ~14 days of results. Note: Some articles may not be relevant to this project.

Rules | Match log | Results page (for watching) | Last updated: 2024-05-26 20:59 (UTC)

Note: The list display can now be customized by each user. See List display personalization for details.














Tasks


Here are some tasks awaiting attention:

Associated Wikimedia

The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:

Sources

Discover Wikipedia using portals