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AbbreviationFinder.org:
Offers list of phrases and slangs abbreviated as LA including Louisiana, and
other most commonly used acronyms besides
Louisiana.
- Topschoolsintheusa.com: Provides
educational information for what you need to study in the state of
Louisiana. Covers educational programs of various subjects (such as law,
business, education, engineering, medical) as well as GMAT, GRE, TOEFL and
LSAT testing centers in Louisiana.
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COUNTRYAAH: Interested in doing research on towns or cities in Louisiana?
This link below will take you to a full list of cities and complete profiles
of each in Louisiana.
- Songaah Website: Interested in learning
popular songs associated with Louisiana? You have come to the right place.
Here you can see complete lyrics for all songs about Louisiana.
Southern U.S. Federated State, 123,677 km², 4,287,768 residents (2006
estimate), 35 inhabitants / km², capital: Baton
Rouge. Borders: Arkansas (N), Mississippi (E), Gulf of Mexico (S), Texas (W).
State Overview
The territory is mainly flat, barely moved by gentle hilly undulations (Mount
Driskill, 175 m); the coastal plain is characterized by vast swamps, lagoons and
lakes (the largest being the Pontchartrain). Louisiana is crossed by the lower
course of the Mississippi River, which here flows into a vast delta entered
after receiving the Red River; other main rivers are Sabine and Calcasieu,
tributaries of the Gulf of Mexico.
Economy
The subtropical climate, hot and humid, favors the crops of cotton, sugar
cane, rice, wheat, soy, citrus fruits and vegetables; considerable interest are
also breeding (cattle, pigs), fishing, the exploitation of forests and that of
the subsoil, rich in oil, natural gas and sulfur. Salt extraction. The industry
is closely connected with the processing of agricultural, forestry and mining
products; the most flourishing sectors are therefore the chemical,
petrochemical, food, paper, wood, textile and tanning sectors, to which
metallurgical, mechanical and shipbuilding complexes are added. The numerous
rivers and streams that run through the territory have made the commercial
activities of many centers flourish, among which New
Orleans predominates. Finally, another important economic resource of the state
is tourism. Important cities, in addition to the capital, are the aforementioned
New Orleans, Shreveport, Lake Charles, Lafayette and Monroe. In Italian,
Louisiana.
History
Founded as a state in 1812, Louisiana was however formed only of a part of
the territory that in ancient times had the same name and which included the
central plains of the USA, around Mississippi, which divided them into eastern
Louisiana (left bank) and western Louisiana (right bank). Although it had
already been explored in the century. XVI by the Spaniards, the territory began
to be systematically colonized by the French at the end of the century. XVII,
after the expedition of La Salle (1682) which gave it the name of Louisiana in
honor of Louis XIV and who founded a colony on the Mississippi estuary from
which New Orleans originated. In 1731 it passed to the French crown, which in
1762 ceded to Spainthe western part while the following year with the Treaty of
Paris passed eastern Britain to Great Britain which was then to become an
integral part of the USA. Western Louisiana returned to France with the treaties
of San Ildefonso (1800) and Aranjuez (1801) and was sold to the USA in 1803
by Napoleon; in 1804 it was divided for administrative reasons into areas north
and south of the 33rd parallel, while in the north there were various States
(including Arkansas), in the south the Territory of Orleans was created, where a
popular movement soon established he asked for the constitution in the state, an
objective reached in 1812 with the name of Louisiana. The events of the new
state were influenced by the strategic and economic importance of New Orleans,
which controls traffic in the Mississippi valley. In New Orleans, A.
Jackson achieved a great victory over the British in 1814. Seat of cotton and
sugar cane plantations, during the Secession war it joined the Confederation and
surrendered in 1862. After the suffering of the reconstruction it experienced a
period of considerable economic development.
Baton Rouge
City (215,882 residents; 567,388 residents the metropolitan area in 1996),
and capital of the State of Louisiana (USA), located on the Mississippi River,
110 km NW of New Orleans. Active node of rail, air (it is home to two airports)
and road communications, it is one of the major port centers in the USA, with a
movement that mainly affects rice, cotton, timber, oil and bauxite; the
industrial sector is also highly developed, which includes chemical, textile,
food and above all petrochemical complexes, including one of the most important
oil refineries in the world. Very important is the cultural activity of the city
which is home to Southern University (founded in 1880) and Louisiana State
University (1860). § Passed by the French to the British with the 1763 Treaty of
Paris and subsequently to the Spanish, who occupied it in 1779, with an action
commanded by the governor Bernardo de Gálvez. Baton Rouge became the capital of
Louisiana in 1849. In 1862 it was occupied by Union troops who defeated General
Breckenridge and settled there until the end of the civil war. From 1882 the
city resumed its role of capital.
Shreveport
City (198,000 residents) of the State of Louisiana (USA), 350 km NW
of Baton Rouge, on the right of the Red River. Located near rich oil and natural
gas deposits, it is an important road and rail junction and home to the textile,
metalworking, chemical, petrochemical, food, wood, paper and glass
industries. Airport.
New Orleans
City (465,538 residents In 1998; 1,308,000 residents The metropolitan area in
1997) of the State of Louisiana (USA), located between the southern shore of
Lake Pontchartrain and the left bank of the Mississippi River, 170 km from the
mouth of the latter in the Gulf of Mexico. To the south, by the river, it
preserves the old quarters, French (Vieux Carré) and Spanish. The American city
is located further west and north to the lake, today crossed by an 8 km long
bridge. In the sec. XX important infrastructures were built, which allowed easy
connections between urban and suburban areas and laid the foundations for
further building expansion, which affected, in particular, the S areas of the
city beyond the Mississippi, where they are new residential and industrial
neighborhoods have been created. It is a commercial center of enormous
importance thanks to its port, located on the Intracoastal Waterway; there are
numerous inland and oceanic shipping lines. Main city of Louisiana, at the
convergence of numerous railway lines, road and air (Moisant international
airport), is home to the food, mechanical, textile, clothing, chemical,
petrochemical, wood, paper and building materials industries. Finally, New
Orleans is a great cultural center, with some universities (Loyola, Tulane,
Dillard) and various museums, and a popular tourist destination.
Founded in 1718 by the French Le Moyne de Bienville, ceded to Spain in 1762,
relegated to France in 1801, in 1803 it finally passed to the United States,
with the purchase of Louisiana, of which it was the capital from 1818 to 1849.
Favored by its position geographic, it soon became an important and prosperous
commercial center. In 1815 it was the scene of the famous battle between the
British and the Americans which consecrated the military fame of A.
Jackson. Severely damaged during the Secession war, it then partially regained
its commercial prosperity.
The first professional actors arrived in New Orleans in 1791: they were
French and came from Haiti where blacks were in revolt. In 1809 the city had
three permanent French theaters, while the first companies that acted in English
had to perform in taverns. James H. Caldwell, actor and impresario, changed the
situation, who opened the American Theater in 1822 and in 1835 the St. Charles,
then the most modern and luxurious showroom in the USA. Destroyed by a fire in
1899, its place was later taken by the Tulane Theater, while the French Opera
House had been for opera since 1859. Some alternative theaters are also
significant, such as the Petit Théâtre du Vieux Carré opened in 1919 and the
Repertory Theater inaugurated in 1966. The foundation is also owed to the
University of Tulane and, until 1967,The Drama Review, the most
important American specialized magazine.
Ever since 1800 New Orleans was brimming with sounds. Italian and French
opera reigned in theaters; parlor pianism had ranks of lovers and
publishers; bands and fanfares animated the streets, parks, parties on the
lake. French, English, German, Irish songs were sung. The slaves
carried voodoo songs, dances and ritesAfrica; nor were the Mexican and Native
American dances missing. In the city there was a rigid system of racial castes:
whites, "creoles of color" (mulatto), free blacks, slaves. But the segregation
was not rigid: the slaves sang opera arias, and their masters carried African
amulets. Little is known about the early stages of hybridization: the black
Jordan drum (1796? -1890) gave the army the charge; the street vendor called Mr.
Cornmeal (d. 1842) ended up singing in the opera houses; the black banjo player
John "Picayune" Butler (d. 1864) achieved national fame by supplying songs to
the white minstrels. Slaves played at the masters' dance parties. There were
bands of blacks or Creoles only, educated and well paid; and even a Negro
Philharmonic Society. The composer LM Gottschalk was the brilliant singer of the
slavering New Orleans: his music incorporates all these suggestions in a
romantic language. Gradually the dance music became more black, undergoing both
internal influences (minstrel show, cake-walk, ragtime) and from the
Caribbean (habanera). After 1890 the caste system collapsed: the bourgeois and
cultured Creoles of color were driven back into the ghetto together with poor
blacks and bourgeois blacks. The result was a final fusion between urban written
music (bands, pianists) and peasant oral music (blues): jazz was born. It wasn't
called that, nor does it have an exact date of birth; but it is certain that it
was a New Orleans specialty, especially in Storyville, the red light area. The
New Orleans style had rigorous characteristics: repertoire of marches, rag,
songs and spirituals; 3-6 winds whose intertwining was partly improvised, with
rare solos; and 2-4 rhythmic instruments that marked a binary tempo. Formalist
and conservative style, however, offered the excitement of the continuous
improvised inventions and the "speaking" sounds of the instruments. If Buddy
Bolden was perhaps the first teacher, the greatest exponents were Bunk Johnson,
Freddie Keppard, Oscar Celestin, Armand J. Piron, and finally the brilliant Joe
Oliver and Jelly Roll Morton. In 1917 Storyville was closed, and jazz had to
emigrate: the Original Dixieland Jazz Band recorded the first records, and the
New Orleans style was copied everywhere. In Chicago it experienced its last
brief splendor, with Oliver and Morton. Shortly thereafter, Louis
Armstrong and Sidney Bechet shattered the old polyphony, paving the way for
soloism. Abandoned New Orleans regressed to the suburbs. Only after the war,
with the rediscovery of archaic jazz, the New Orleans style was reborn, often in
naive forms or for tourists: in the city the most loved music was however the rock of
the singer-pianist Fats Domino. There was also a small modern jazz movement
around the pianist Ellis Marsalis; but only in the eighties, thanks to his sons
Wynton and Branford Marsalis and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, New Orleans
returned to the protagonist in jazz. In the city, the popular music of Cajun and Zydeco is
still very much alive, sung in Creole dialect with violins, guitars and
accordions, as well as other popular black and Hispanic genres.
Lake Charles
City (75,200 residents) of the state of Louisiana (USA); it is located on
the Calcasieu river, 85 km ENE of Beaumont. Connected by a navigable channel
with the Gulf of Mexico, it is a port center (cereals, cotton, timber,
oil); home to the chemical, petrochemical and rubber industries.
Lafayette (Louisiana)
City (82,000 residents) of the State of Louisiana (USA), 80 km WSW of Baton
Rouge, on the Vermilion River. There is a thriving agricultural market (rice,
potatoes, cotton, sugar cane) with active mechanical, electrical engineering,
construction materials and local product processing industries (sugar factories,
oil mills, cotton mills). Nearby, natural gas and oil fields. University (1898).
Monroe
City (57,600 residents) of the State of Louisiana (USA), 150 km E
of Shreveport, on the left of the Ouachita River. Located on
the Jackson - Dallas railway, it is home to the food, textile and wood
industries; nearby, large deposits of natural gas. Airport.
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