New Orleans
New Orleans[a] (commonly known as NOLA or the Big Easy among other nicknames) is a consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 according to the 2020 U.S. census,[8] it is the most populous city in Louisiana and the French Louisiana region;[9] third most populous city in the Deep South; and the twelfth-most populous city in the southeastern United States. Serving as a major port, New Orleans is considered an economic and commercial hub for the broader Gulf Coast region of the United States.
Several terms redirect here. For other uses, see The Big Easy (disambiguation), Nola (disambiguation), City of New Orleans (disambiguation), and New Orleans (disambiguation).
New Orleans
La Nouvelle-Orléans (French)
United States
1718
Philippe II, Duke of Orléans (1674–1723)
349.85 sq mi (906.10 km2)
169.42 sq mi (438.80 km2)
180.43 sq mi (467.30 km2)
3,755.2 sq mi (9,726.6 km2)
−6.5 to 20 ft (−2 to 6 m)
383,997
2,267/sq mi (875/km2)
963,212 (US: 49th)
3,563.8/sq mi (1,376.0/km2)
1,270,530 (US: 45th)
New Orleanian
$29.147 billion (2022)
$94.031 billion (2022)
22-55000
New Orleans is world-renowned for its distinctive music, Creole cuisine, unique dialects, and its annual celebrations and festivals, most notably Mardi Gras. The historic heart of the city is the French Quarter, known for its French and Spanish Creole architecture and vibrant nightlife along Bourbon Street. The city has been described as the "most unique" in the United States,[10][11][12][13] owing in large part to its cross-cultural and multilingual heritage.[14] Additionally, New Orleans has increasingly been known as "Hollywood South" due to its prominent role in the film industry and in pop culture.[15][16]
Founded in 1718 by French colonists, New Orleans was once the territorial capital of French Louisiana before becoming part of the United States in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. New Orleans in 1840 was the third most populous city in the United States,[17] and it was the largest city in the American South from the Antebellum era until after World War II. The city has historically been very vulnerable to flooding, due to its high rainfall, low lying elevation, poor natural drainage, and proximity to multiple bodies of water. State and federal authorities have installed a complex system of levees and drainage pumps in an effort to protect the city.[18][19]
New Orleans was severely affected by Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, which flooded more than 80% of the city, killed more than 1,800 people, and displaced thousands of residents, causing a population decline of over 50%.[20] Since Katrina, major redevelopment efforts have led to a rebound in the city's population. Concerns have been expressed about gentrification, new residents buying property in formerly close-knit communities, and displacement of longtime residents.[21][22][23][24] Additionally, high rates of violent crime continue to plague the city with New Orleans experiencing 280 murders in 2022, resulting in the highest per capita homicide rate in the United States.[25][26]
The city and Orleans Parish (French: paroisse d'Orléans) are coterminous.[27] As of 2017, Orleans Parish is the third most populous parish in Louisiana, behind East Baton Rouge Parish and neighboring Jefferson Parish.[28] The city and parish are bounded by St. Tammany Parish and Lake Pontchartrain to the north, St. Bernard Parish and Lake Borgne to the east, Plaquemines Parish to the south, and Jefferson Parish to the south and west.
The city anchors the larger Greater New Orleans metropolitan area, which had a population of 1,271,845 in 2020.[29] Greater New Orleans is the most populous metropolitan statistical area (MSA) in Louisiana and, since the 2020 census, has been the 46th most populous MSA in the United States.[30]
The name of New Orleans derives from the original French name (La Nouvelle-Orléans), which was given to the city in honor of Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, who served as Louis XV's regent from 1715 to 1723.[31] The French city of Orléans itself is named after the Roman emperor Aurelian, originally being known as Aurelianum. Thus, by extension, since New Orleans is also named after Aurelian, its name in Latin would translate to Nova Aurelia.
Following France's defeat in the Seven Years' War and the Treaty of Paris, which was signed in 1763, France transferred possession of Louisiana to Spain. The Spanish renamed the city to Nueva Orleans (pronounced [ˌnweβa oɾleˈans]), which was used until 1800.[32] When the United States acquired possession from France in 1803, the French name was adopted and anglicized to become the modern name, which is still in use today.
New Orleans has several nicknames, including these:
Transportation
Public transportation
Hurricane Katrina devastated transit service in 2005. The New Orleans Regional Transit Authority (RTA) was quicker to restore the streetcars to service, while bus service had only been restored to 35% of pre-Katrina levels as recently as the end of 2013. During the same period, streetcars arrived at an average of once every seventeen minutes, compared to bus frequencies of once every thirty-eight minutes. The same priority was demonstrated in RTA's spending, increasing the proportion of its budget devoted to streetcars to more than three times compared to its pre-Katrina budget.[299] Through the end of 2017, counting both streetcar and bus trips, only 51% of service had been restored to pre-Katrina levels.[300]
In 2017, the New Orleans Regional Transit Authority began operation on the extension of the Rampart–St. Claude streetcar line. Another change to transit service that year was the re-routing of the 15 Freret and 28 Martin Luther King bus routes to Canal Street. These increased the number of jobs accessible by a thirty-minute walk or transit ride: from 83,722 in 2016 to 89,216 in 2017. This resulted in a regional increase in such job access by more than a full percentage point.[300]