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Louisiana, LA

The State of Louisiana is a state located in
the southern region of the United States of America. The
capital of Louisiana is Baton Rouge and the most populous city
is New Orleans.
The largest parish by population is Jefferson
Parish and largest by area is Terrebonne Parish (Louisiana is
the only state divided into parishes, which are local
governments equivalent to counties).
The New Orleans metropolitan area is
Louisiana's largest. Louisiana has a unique multicultural and
multilingual heritage. Originally part of New France,
Louisiana is home to many speakers of Cajun French and
Louisiana Creole French. African American/Franco-African, and
French/French Canadian form the two largest groups of ancestry
in Louisiana's population.
Namesake
Louisiana (New France) was named after Louis
XIV, king of France from 1643-1715. When René-Robert Cavelier,
Sieur de La Salle claimed the territory drained by the
Mississippi River for France, he named it La Louisiane,
meaning "Land of Louis".
Louisiana was once part of the Louisiana
Territory which once stretched from present-day New Orleans to
the Canadian border.
The territory was acquired in 1803 by the
United States by way of the Louisiana Purchase. Part or all of
15 states were formed from the territory. An alternative
explanation of the name is that Louisiana is a combination of
Louis the XIV and his wife Anna of Austria.
This, however, is false. While his mother was
Anne of Austria, Louis the XIV was married to Marie-Thérèse.
Geography
The state is bordered to the west by the state
of Texas; to the north by Arkansas; to the east by the state
of Mississippi; and to the south by the Gulf of Mexico.
The surface of the state may properly be
divided into two parts, the uplands, and the alluvial, coast
and swamp regions.
The alluvial regions, including the low swamps
and coast lands, cover an area of about 20,000 square miles
(52,000 km²); they lie principally along the Mississippi
River, which traverses the state from north to south for a
distance of about 600 miles (1,000 km) and ultimately emptying
into the Gulf of Mexico, the Red River, the Ouachita River and
its branches, and other minor streams.
The breadth of the alluvial region along the
Mississippi is from 10 to 60 miles (15 to 100 km), and along
the other streams it averages about 10 miles (15 km).
The Mississippi flows upon a ridge formed by
its own deposits, from which the lands incline toward the low
swamps beyond at an average fall of six feet per mile (3
m/km).
he alluvial lands along other streams present
very similar features. These alluvial lands are never
inundated, save when breaks occur in the levees by which they
are protected against the floods of the Mississippi and its
tributaries.
These floods, however, do not occur annually,
and they may be said to be exceptional. With the maintenance
of strong levees, these alluvial lands would enjoy perpetual
immunity from inundation.
The higherlands and contiguous hill lands of
the north and northwestern part of the state have an area of
more than 25,000 square miles (65,000 km²), and they consist
of prairie and woodlands.
The elevations above sea-level range from 10
feet (3 m) at the coast and swamp lands to 50 and 60 feet
(15–18 m) at the prairie and alluvial lands. In the uplands
and hills the elevations rise to Driskill Mountain the highest
point in the state at only 535 feet (163 m) above sea level.
Only two other states in the union, Florida and Delaware, are
geographically lower than Louisiana, though several other
states, such as Kansas and Nebraska, are geographically
flatter.
Besides the navigable rivers already named
(some of which are called bayous), there are the Sabine (Sah-BEAN),
forming the western boundary, and the Pearl, the eastern
boundary, the Calcasieu (KAL-cah-shoe), the Mermentau, the
Vermilion, the Teche, the Atchafalaya, the Boeuf (buff), the
Lafourche (Luff-OOSH), the Courtableau, the D'Arbonne, the
Macon, the Tensas (TEN-saw), the Amite, the Tchefuncte, the
Tickfaw, the Natalbany, and a number of other streams of
lesser note, constituting a natural system of navigable
waterways, aggregating over 4,000 miles in length, which is
unequalled in the United States.
The state also has 1,060 square miles (2,745
km²) of land-locked bays, 1,700 square miles (4,400 km²) of
inland lakes, and a river surface of over 500 square miles
(1,300 km²).
Climate
Louisiana has a humid subtropical climate (Koppen
climate classification Cfa), perhaps the most "classic"
example of a humid subtropical climate of all the Southeastern
states, with long, hot, humid 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 even at its farthest point is no more than 200 miles
(320 km) away.
Precipitation is frequent throughout the year,
although the summer is slightly wetter than the rest of the
year, and there is a dip in precipitation in October, with
Southern Louisiana receiving far more, copious rainfall,
especially during the winter months.
Summers in Louisiana are hot and humid with
high temperatures from mid-June to mid-September averaging
90°F (32°C) or more and overnight lows averaging above 70°F
(22°C).
In northern Louisiana, temperatures frequently
reach above 105°F (41°C) in the summer.
Temperatures are generally mildly warm in the
winter in the southern part of the state, with highs around
New Orleans, Baton Rouge, the rest of south Louisiana, and the
Gulf of Mexico averaging 66°F (19°C), while the northern part
of the state is mildly cool in the winter with highs averaging
59°F (15°C).
This article is licensed under
the
GNU Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the
Wikipedia
article "Louisiana".
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