Natural beauty and old-world charm attract millions of tourists to Louisiana each year. This southern state is located on the Gulf of Mexico at the mouth of the Mississippi River. It borders Texas on the west, Arkansas on the north, and Mississippi to the east. Its southern boundary is the Gulf. The French language is still prevalent in many regions of the state, and Louisiana's growing multi cultural population is now estimated at more than 4.4 million. A highly diverse region, Louisiana may well have more nicknames than any other state. Because of the Creole heritage of its French and Spanish settlers, it is often referred to as The Creole State. Because of the hundreds of sluggish streams, called bayous, that wind through the marshes and lowlands of the state, it is also The Bayou State. Because of the brown pelicans living throughout the bayou region, its most popular nickname is The Pelican State. Because the state grows so much sugar cane, it has won the nickname The Sugar State. And finally, because of its musical heritage, the state is called The Cradle of Jazz. But there's more than Dixieland Jazz, there are the Blues, Rhythm & Blues, Cajun and Creole, Gospel, Country, and Classical music forms, all at home in Louisiana.

Louisiana State and Tulane head a list of nearly 20 excellent colleges and universities. Opera was first performed in the United States at New Orleans in 1796. The Steamboat New Orleans completed the first steam powered trip down the Mississippi in 1812 from Cincinnati to New Orleans in 82 days. The world's longest bridge, the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, opened in 1956, crossing 24 miles of open water.

Louisiana has three main land regions. The East Gulf Central Plain covers the area east of the Mississippi and north of Lake Pontchartrain, rising gradually from marshes to rolling hills. The Mississippi Alluvial Plain sweeps south from Arkansas to the Gulf, a broken line of ridges and hollows running parallel to the Mississippi, which has carried tons of silt down to the Gulf to form the Mississippi Delta, dotted by bayous and low islands. The West Gulf Coastal Plain includes all of Louisiana west of the Mississippi Alluvial Plain, stretching inland from the Gulf for about 20 miles. The state reaches its greatest height in the Western Uplands between the Ouachita and Sabine rivers. The state has a 397-mile coastline along the Gulf, most of which is ragged and irregular and includes bays and inlets totaling 7,721 miles. Chief bays include the Atchafalaya, Barataria, Caillon, Cote Blanche, Terrebonne, and Vermillion. Its many islands on the marshy coast include Breton, Chandeleur, Grand Isle, Isle Dernier, Marsh, and Timbalier. The largest of its 15 state parks, Chicot, provides abundant opportunities for boating, swimming, fishing, and camping. Principal rivers are the Mississippi, Red (a tributary of the Mississippi), Ouachita, Sabine, and Pearl. The major cities are Baton Rouge, the capital, New Orleans, the largest, Shreveport, Lafayette, Lake Charles, Monroe, and Alexandria The largest of its many lakes is Lake Pontchartrain. Natural resources are fertile soil, vast mineral deposits, timberlands, wildlife, and a semitropical climate.

Louisiana has long been noted for its flourishing agriculture, timber, and commercial fishing, as well as its huge oil and sugar refineries, but of major importance to its economy today are its busy manufacturing plants. In addition to sugar, agricultural crops include cotton, rice, sweet potatoes. Manufactures range from aluminum, rubber and rayon products to chemicals, aerospace and petroleum products. Louisiana is one of the nations leading salt-producing states. Important also is its production of fur pelts. The region is served by the New Orleans International Airport, extensive rail and highway systems, major deepwater ports at New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Lake Charles, the Gulf and its access to growing markets of Central and South America, and more than 5,000 miles of waterways, including The Gulf Intracoastal Waterway.

Notable points of interest are the Louisiana State Museum, the Mayan museum exhibits at the Middle American Research Institution at Tulane, the Isaac Delgardo Museum of Art, The French Opera House, the Grand Isle at the entrance to Barataria Bay, site of the Battle of New Orleans where General Andrew Jackson defeated the British in the War of 1812, the Audubon Memorial, the Longfellow-Evangeline Memorial, the French Quarter in New Orleans, Acadian Village, the St. Louis Cathedral, Bayou Sauvage National Wildlife Refuge, Baton Rouge Symphony, Monroe Civic Center, the Louisiana Purchase Memorial, and the Marksville Prehistoric Indian Village. A wide variety of annual events include the Mardi Gras, Sugar Bowl football game, Strawberry Festival, Holiday Tour of Historic Homes, Breaux Bridge Crawfish Festival, rodeos and regattas.

For more than 12,000 years, Louisiana was occupied by Native American cultures, until 1682 when the Mississippi Valley was claimed by the explorer Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle, who named it Louisiane in honor of Louis XIV of France. New Orleans was founded in 1718 and became the territory's capital in 1723. Spain seized the area in 1769 and called it Lusiana, but Napoleon regained control for France in 1800. France then sold the region (including all of the Mississippi Valley) to the United States in 1803 under terms of the Louisiana Purchase. William C.C. Claiborne became the first governor of the territory. In 1810 the U.S. annexed a section of the independent Republic of West Florida as part of the Territory of Orleans, which on April 30, 1812, was renamed Louisiana. It then became the 18th state of the Union.

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