New Orleans in Louisiana

Friday, 15 December 2017 - 11:00 am (CET/MEZ) Berlin | Author/Destination:
Category/Kategorie: General
Reading Time:  10 minutes

Royal Street © Jan Kronsell/cc-by-sa-3.0

Royal Street © Jan Kronsell/cc-by-sa-3.0

New Orleans (French: La Nouvelle-Orléans) is the major United States port and the largest city and metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana. The population of the city is at 392,000. The New Orleans metropolitan area (New Orleans–Metairie–Kenner Metropolitan Statistical Area) has a population of 1.4 million. The city is known for its distinct French and Spanish Creole architecture, as well as its cross-cultural and multilingual heritage. New Orleans is famous for its cuisine, music (particularly as the birthplace of jazz) and its annual celebrations and festivals, most notably Mardi Gras. The city is often referred to as the “most unique” in the United States. New Orleans is located in southeastern Louisiana, and occupies both sides of the Mississippi River. The heart of the city and its French Quarter is on the river’s north side. The city and Orleans Parish (French: paroisse d’Orléans) are coterminous. The city and parish are bounded by the parishes of St. Tammany to the north, St. Bernard to the east, Plaquemines to the south, and Jefferson to the south and west. Lake Pontchartrain, part of lies within the city limits, lies to the north and Lake Borgne lies to the east.

La Nouvelle-Orléans (New Orleans) was founded May 7, 1718, by the French Mississippi Company, under the direction of Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, on land inhabited by the Chitimacha. It was named for Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, who was Regent of the Kingdom of France at the time. His title came from the French city of Orléans. The French colony was ceded to the Spanish Empire in the Treaty of Paris (1763). During the American Revolutionary War, New Orleans was an important port for smuggling aid to the rebels, transporting military equipment and supplies up the Mississippi River. Bernardo de Gálvez y Madrid, Count of Gálvez successfully launched a southern campaign against the British from the city in 1779. New Orleans (Spanish: Nueva Orleans) remained under Spanish control until 1803, when it reverted briefly to French rule. Nearly all of the surviving 18th-century architecture of the Vieux Carré (French Quarter) dates from the Spanish period, notably excepting the Old Ursuline Convent. Napoleon sold Louisiana (New France) to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Thereafter, the city grew rapidly with influxes of Americans, French, Creoles and Africans. Later immigrants were Irish, Germans and Italians. Major commodity crops of sugar and cotton were cultivated with slave labor on nearby large plantations. Thousands of refugees from the 1804 Haitian Revolution, both whites and free people of color (affranchis or gens de couleur libres), arrived in New Orleans, often accompanied by slaves of African descent. While Governor Claiborne and other officials wanted to keep out additional free black people, the French Creoles wanted to increase the French-speaking population. As more refugees were allowed into the Territory of Orleans, Haitian émigrés who had first gone to Cuba also arrived. Many of the white Francophones had been deported by officials in Cuba in retaliation for Bonapartist schemes. Nearly 90 percent of these immigrants settled in New Orleans. The 1809 migration brought 2,731 whites; 3,102 free persons of African descent; and 3,226 slaves of African descent, doubling the city’s population. The city became 63 percent black, a greater proportion than Charleston‘s 53 percent.

French Quarter - Bourbon Street © ChrisLitherland/cc-by-sa-3.0 French Quarter - Jackson Square © Daniel Schwen/cc-by-sa-4.0 French Quarter - Old Absinthe Bar © Dand8282/cc-by-2.5 French Quarter - Jackson Square © Justin Watt French Quarter - Bourbon Street towards Canal Street © Adrian Pingstone French Quarter - Arnaud's Remoulade - Restaurant & Oyster Bar © Jan Kronsell/cc-by-sa-3.0 © flickr.com - djnaquin67/cc-by-sa-2.0 © flickr.com - Lara Farhadi/cc-by-2.0
<
>
French Quarter - Arnaud's Remoulade - Restaurant & Oyster Bar © Jan Kronsell/cc-by-sa-3.0
The Central Business District is located immediately north and west of the Mississippi and was historically called the “American Quarter” or “American Sector.” It was developed after the heart of French and Spanish settlement. It includes Lafayette Square. Most streets in this area fan out from a central point. Major streets include Canal Street, Poydras Street, Tulane Avenue and Loyola Avenue. Canal Street divides the traditional “downtown” area from the “uptown” area. Every street crossing Canal Street between the Mississippi River and Rampart Street, which is the northern edge of the French Quarter, has a different name for the “uptown” and “downtown” portions. For example, St. Charles Avenue, known for its street car line, is called Royal Street below Canal Street, though where it traverses the Central Business District between Canal and Lee Circle, it is properly called St. Charles Street. Elsewhere in the city, Canal Street serves as the dividing point between the “South” and “North” portions of various streets. In the local parlance downtown means “downriver from Canal Street”, while uptown means “upriver from Canal Street”. Downtown neighborhoods include the French Quarter, Tremé, the 7th Ward, Faubourg Marigny, Bywater (the Upper Ninth Ward), and the Lower Ninth Ward. Uptown neighborhoods include the Warehouse District, the Lower Garden District, the Garden District, the Irish Channel, the University District, Carrollton, Gert Town, Fontainebleau and Broadmoor. However, the Warehouse and the Central Business District are frequently called “Downtown” as a specific region, as in the Downtown Development District. Other major districts within the city include Bayou St. John, Mid-City, Gentilly, Lakeview, Lakefront, New Orleans East and Algiers. New Orleans is world-famous for its abundance of architectural styles that reflect the city’s multicultural heritage. Though New Orleans possesses numerous structures of national architectural significance, it is equally, if not more, revered for its enormous, largely intact (even post-Katrina) historic built environment. Twenty National Register Historic Districts have been established, and fourteen local historic districts aid in preservation. Thirteen of the districts are administered by the New Orleans Historic District Landmarks Commission (HDLC), while one—the French Quarter—is administered by the Vieux Carre Commission (VCC). Additionally, both the National Park Service, via the National Register of Historic Places, and the HDLC have landmarked individual buildings, many of which lie outside the boundaries of existing historic districts. Housing styles include the shotgun house and the bungalow style. Creole cottages and townhouses, notable for their large courtyards and intricate iron balconies, line the streets of the French Quarter. American townhouses, double-gallery houses, and Raised Center-Hall Cottages are notable. St. Charles Avenue is famed for its large antebellum homes. Its mansions are in various styles, such as Greek Revival, American Colonial and the Victorian styles of Queen Anne and Italianate architecture. New Orleans is also noted for its large, European-style Catholic cemeteries.

New Orleans has many visitor attractions, from the world-renowned French Quarter; to St. Charles Avenue, (home of Tulane and Loyola Universities, the historic Pontchartrain Hotel, and many 19th-century mansions); to Magazine Street, with its boutique stores and antique shops. The French Quarter (known locally as “the Quarter” or “Vieux Carré”), which was the colonial-era city and is bounded by the Mississippi River, Rampart Street, Canal Street, and Esplanade Avenue, contains popular hotels, bars and nightclubs. Notable tourist attractions in the Quarter include Bourbon Street, Jackson Square, St. Louis Cathedral, the French Market (including Café du Monde, famous for café au lait and beignets), and Preservation Hall. Also in the French Quarter is the old New Orleans Mint, a former branch of the United States Mint which now operates as a museum, and The Historic New Orleans Collection, a museum and research center housing art and artifacts relating to the history and the Gulf South. Close to the Quarter is the Tremé community, which contains the New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park and the New Orleans African American Museum — a site which is listed on the Louisiana African American Heritage Trail. The National WWII Museum offers a multi-building odyssey through the history of the Pacific and European theaters. Nearby, Confederate Memorial Hall, the oldest continually-operating museum in Louisiana, contains the second-largest collection of Confederate memorabilia. Art museums include the Contemporary Arts Center, the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA) in City Park, and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. New Orleans is home to the Audubon Nature Institute (which consists of Audubon Park, the Audubon Zoo, the Aquarium of the Americas and the Audubon Butterfly Garden and Insectarium), and home to gardens which include Longue Vue House and Gardens and the New Orleans Botanical Garden. City Park, one of the country’s most expansive and visited urban parks, has one of the largest stands of oak trees in the world.

Read more on Remoulade, New Orleans, New Orleans Tourism, New Orleans Tourism, New Orleans Online, Wikivoyage New Orleans and Wikipedia New Orleans (Smart Traveler App by U.S. Department of State - Weather report by weather.com - Global Passport Power Rank - Travel Risk Map - Democracy Index - GDP according to IMF, UN, and World Bank - Global Competitiveness Report - Corruption Perceptions Index - Press Freedom Index - World Justice Project - Rule of Law Index - UN Human Development Index - Global Peace Index - Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index). Photos by Wikimedia Commons. If you have a suggestion, critique, review or comment to this blog entry, we are looking forward to receive your e-mail at comment@wingsch.net. Please name the headline of the blog post to which your e-mail refers to in the subject line.






Recommended posts:

Share this post: (Please note data protection regulations before using buttons)

Hamburger

Hamburger

[caption id="attachment_243883" align="aligncenter" width="590"] © Ripo2007[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]A hamburger, or simply a burger, is a dish consisting of fillings—usually a patty of ground meat, typically beef—placed inside ...

[ read more ]

Rostow on Don river

Rostow on Don river

[caption id="attachment_151403" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Skyline at night © E.doroganich/cc-by-sa-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Rostov-on-Don is a port city and the administrative center of Rostov Oblast and the Southern Fede...

[ read more ]

Novo mesto in Slovenia

Novo mesto in Slovenia

[caption id="attachment_160963" align="aligncenter" width="590"] © www.markopirc.com/cc-by-sa-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Novo Mesto is the city on a bend of the Krka River in the City Municipality of Novo Mesto in southeastern Slo...

[ read more ]

Stonewall Inn in New York City

Stonewall Inn in New York City

[caption id="attachment_235408" align="aligncenter" width="590"] © ThePhotoCat/cc-by-sa-4.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]The Stonewall Inn, often shortened to Stonewall, is a gay bar and recreational tavern in the Greenwich Village neig...

[ read more ]

Theme Week Scotland - East Kilbride

Theme Week Scotland - East Kilbride

[caption id="attachment_152509" align="aligncenter" width="590"] East Kilbride Heritage Park © geograph.org.uk - John McLeish/cc-by-sa-2.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]East Kilbride (Scottish Gaelic: Cille Bhrìghde an Ear) is the large...

[ read more ]

Galway has everything for a relaxing city break

Galway has everything for a relaxing city break

[caption id="attachment_160545" align="aligncenter" width="590"] The Tribes of Galway on Eyre Square © flickr.com - Eoin Gardiner[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Galway (Cathair na Gaillimhe) is a city in County Galway, Republic of Ireland...

[ read more ]

Theme Week Monaco - La Condamine

Theme Week Monaco - La Condamine

[caption id="attachment_164134" align="aligncenter" width="590"] La Condamine and Port Hercule © Diego Delso/cc-by-sa-4.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]La Condamine is the central Ward in Monaco. The city district is located around Port ...

[ read more ]

St. Augustine in Florida

St. Augustine in Florida

[caption id="attachment_167379" align="aligncenter" width="590"] City Hall and Lichtner Museum © JanGoldsmith/cc-by-sa-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]St. Augustine (Spanish: San Agustín) is a city in the Southeastern United States, o...

[ read more ]

Portrait: Architect, city planner, painter, furniture and stage designer Karl Friedrich Schinkel

Portrait: Architect, city planner, painter, furniture and stage designer Karl Friedrich Schinkel

[caption id="attachment_203507" align="aligncenter" width="414"] Schinkel in 1836 © Carl Joseph Begas[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Karl Friedrich Schinkel was a Prussian architect, city planner, and painter who also designed furniture a...

[ read more ]

The seaside town of Weymouth

The seaside town of Weymouth

[caption id="attachment_161122" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Dorset Seafood Festival seen from Town Bridge © Edward Betts[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Weymouth is a seaside town in Dorset, England, situated on a sheltered bay at the...

[ read more ]

Theme Week Morocco - Marrakesh

Theme Week Morocco - Marrakesh

[caption id="attachment_167308" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Jemaa el-Fnaa © Boris Macek/cc-by-sa-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Marrakesh, also known by the French spelling Marrakech, is a major city of the Kingdom of Morocco. It...

[ read more ]

Theme Week Galicia - Monforte de Lemos

Theme Week Galicia - Monforte de Lemos

[caption id="attachment_150872" align="aligncenter" width="590"] © Barfly2001[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Monforte de Lemos is a city and municipality in the province of Lugo. It covers an area of 200 km² and lies 62 km from Lugo. It ...

[ read more ]

Return to TopReturn to Top