Louisiana (French: La Louisiane) is a declare in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by Place and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is bordered by the permit of Texas to the west, Arkansas to the north, Mississippi to the east, and the Gulf of Mexico to the south. A large part of its eastern boundary is demarcated by the Mississippi River. Louisiana is the single-handedly U.S. state once political subdivisions termed parishes, which are equivalent to counties, making it one of abandoned two U.S. states not subdivided into counties (the additional being Alaska and its boroughs). The state’s capital is Baton Rouge, and its largest city is New Orleans, with a population of with reference to 383,000 people.

Some Louisiana urban environments have a multicultural, multilingual heritage, being correspondingly strongly influenced by a amalgamation of 18th century Louisiana French, Dominican Creole, Spanish, French Canadian, Acadian, Native American, and West African cultures that they are considered to be exceptional in the U.S. Before the American buy of the territory in 1803, the present–day U.S. state of Louisiana had been both a French colony and a Spanish one. In addition, colonists imported various West African peoples as slaves in the 18th century. Many came from peoples of the same region of West Africa, thus concentrating their culture; Filipinos next arrived during colonial Louisiana. In the post–Civil War environment, Anglo Americans increased the pressure for Anglicization, and in 1921, English was for a era made the sole language of assistance in Louisiana schools back a policy of multilingualism was revived in 1974. There has never been an credited language in Louisiana, and the make a clean breast constitution enumerates “the right of the people to preserve, foster, and push their respective historic, linguistic, and cultural origins.”

Based on national averages, Louisiana frequently ranks low accompanied by the U.S. in terms of health, education, development, and tall in measures of poverty. In 2018, Louisiana was ranked as the least healthy give access in the country, with tall levels of drug-related deaths. It along with has had the highest homicide rate in the United States back at least the 1990s.

Much of the state’s lands were formed from sediment washed the length of the Mississippi River, leaving huge deltas and enormous areas of coastal marsh and swamp. These contain a rich southern biota; typical examples add up birds such as ibises and egrets. There are as a consequence many species of tree frogs such as the state recognized American green tree frog and fish such as sturgeon and paddlefish. In more elevated areas, fire is a natural process in the landscape and has produced extensive areas of longleaf pine forest and wet savannas. These withhold an exceptionally large number of tree-plant species, including many species of terrestrial orchids and carnivorous plants. Louisiana has more Native American tribes than any other southern state, including four that are federally recognized, ten that are come clean recognized, and four that have not usual recognition.