About LSU Health Sciences Center - New Orleans

New Orleans (/ˈɔːrl(i)ənz, ɔːrˈliːnz/, locally /ˈɔːrlənz/; French: La Nouvelle-Orléans [la nuvɛlɔʁleɑ̃] (listen)) is a consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of Louisiana. With an estimated population of 390,144 in 2019, it is the most populous city in Louisiana. Serving as a major port, New Orleans is considered an economic and want ad hub for the broader Gulf Coast region of the United States.

New Orleans is world-renowned for its certain 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 buzzing nightlife along Bourbon Street. The city has been described as the “most unique” in the United States, owing in large portion to its cross-cultural and multilingual heritage. Additionally, New Orleans has increasingly been known as “Hollywood South” due to its prominent role in the film industry and in pop culture.

Founded in 1718 by French colonists, New Orleans was following the territorial capital of French Louisiana back being traded to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. New Orleans in 1840 was the third-most populous city in the United States, and it was the largest city in the American South from the Antebellum era until after World War II. The city has historically been completely vulnerable to flooding, due to its tall rainfall, low lying elevation, poor natural drainage, and proximity to multipart bodies of water. State and federal authorities have installed a perplexing system of levees and drainage pumps in an effort to protect the city.

New Orleans was highly affected by Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, which flooded greater than 80% of the city, killed over 1,800 people, and displaced thousands of residents, causing a population terminate of higher than 50%. Since Katrina, major redevelopment efforts have led to a rebound in the city’s population. Concerns very nearly gentrification, new residents buying property in formerly closely knit communities, and displacement of longtime residents have been expressed.

The city and Orleans Parish (French: paroisse d’Orléans) are coterminous. As of 2017, Orleans Parish is the third most-populous parish in Louisiana, behind East Baton Rouge Parish and against Jefferson Parish. 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 an estimated population of 1,270,530 in 2019. Greater New Orleans is the most populous metropolitan statistical Place in Louisiana and the 45th-most populous MSA in the United States.