Picayune ( pik-ə-YOON) is the largest city in Pearl River County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 10,878 at the 2010 census. The city is located nearly 45 miles (72 km) from New Orleans, Hattiesburg, and Gulfport–Biloxi. The Stennis Space Center is 10 miles (16 km) away. Picayune is part of the New Orleans–Metairie–Hammond collect statistical area.

The word “picayune” was the proclaim of a Spanish coin, worth half a real. Its state derives from the French “picaillon”, which is itself from the Provençal “picaioun”, the pronounce of an unrelated small copper coin from Savoy. By extension, picayune can mean “trivial” or “of Tiny value”. Picayune was incorporated in 1904, and was named by Eliza Jane Poitevent Nicholson in 1884, the owner and publisher of the New Orleans Daily Picayune, a newspaper named for the coin.

The local post office contained a mural, subsequently covered over, Lumber Region of Mississippi, painted by Donald H. Robertson in 1940. Federally commissioned murals were produced from 1934 to 1943 in the United States through the Section of Painting and Sculpture, later called the Section of Fine Arts, of the Treasury Department.

While Picayune acknowledged extensive broken from Hurricane Katrina, it was not as unfriendly as in other easy to use cities. This caused Picayune to become the temporary home for many who relocated from the New Orleans Place and from the Mississippi Gulf Coast who were seeking a safer home site with simple commuting to those areas.