Daily Archives: November 6, 2013

We cannot vouch for the truthfulness of any report on this site. If you feel a location has been reported in error, or want to dispute a report, please contact us.

The state of Louisiana (i /luizin/ or i /luzin/; French: tat de Louisiane, [lwizjan] ( listen); Louisiana Creole: Lta de la Lwizyn) is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties. The largest parish by population is Jefferson Parish, and the largest by land area is Cameron Parish.

Some Louisiana urban environments have a multicultural, multilingual heritage, being so strongly influenced by an admixture of 18th century French, Spanish and African cultures that they are considered to be somewhat exceptional in the U.S. Before the American influx and statehood at the beginning of the 19th century, the territory of current Louisiana State had been a Spanish and French colony. In addition, the pattern of development included importing numerous Africans in the 18th century, with many from the same region of West Africa, thus concentrating their culture.

Louisiana was named after Louis XIV, King of France from 16431715. When Ren-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle claimed the territory drained by the Mississippi River for France, he named it La Louisiane, meaning "Land of Louis". Louisiana was also part of the Viceroyalty of New Mexico of the Mexican Empire. Once part of the United States, the Louisiana Territory stretched from present-day New Orleans north to the present-day Canadian border.

Louisiana is bordered to the west by the state of Texas; to the north by Arkansas; to the east by the state of Mississippi; and to the south by the Gulf of Mexico.

The surface of the state may properly be divided into two parts, the uplands and the alluvial. The alluvial region includes low swamp lands, coastal marshlands and beaches, and barrier islands that cover about 20,000 square miles (52,000km). This area lies principally along the Gulf of Mexico and the Mississippi River, which traverses the state from north to south for a distance of about 600 miles (1,000km) and empties into the Gulf of Mexico; the Red River; the Ouachita River and its branches; and other minor streams (some of which are called bayous). The breadth of the alluvial region along the Mississippi is from 10 to 60 miles (15 to 100km), and along the other rivers the alluvial region averages about 10 miles (15km) across. The Mississippi River flows along a ridge formed by its own deposits (known as a levee), from which the lands decline toward the low swamps beyond at an average fall of six feet per mile (3m/km). The alluvial lands along other streams present similar features.

The higher lands and contiguous hill lands of the north and northwestern part of the state have an area of more than 25,000 square miles (65,000km). They consist of prairie and woodlands. The elevations above sea level range from 10 feet (3m) at the coast and swamp lands to 50 and 60 feet (1518m) at the prairie and alluvial lands. In the uplands and hills, the elevations rise to Driskill Mountain, the highest point in the state at only 535 feet (163m) above sea level. Only two other states, Florida and Delaware, are geographically lower than Louisiana.[citation needed]

Besides the navigable waterways already named, there are the Sabine (Sah-BEAN), forming the western boundary; and the Pearl, the eastern boundary; the Calcasieu (KAL-cah-shew), the Mermentau, the Vermilion, Bayou Teche, the Atchafalaya, the Boeuf (beff), Bayou Lafourche, the Courtableau, Bayou D'Arbonne, the Macon, the Tensas (TEN-saw), Amite River, the Tchefuncte (CHA-Funk-ta), the Tickfaw, the Natalbany, and a number of other smaller streams, constituting a natural system of navigable waterways, aggregating over 4,000miles (6,400km) in length. These waterways are unequaled in any other state of the nation.[citation needed] The state also has 1,060 square miles (2,745km) of land-locked bays; 1,700 square miles (4,400km) of inland lakes; and a river surface of over 500 square miles (1,300km).[citation needed]

The state also has political jurisdiction over the approximately 3-mile-wide portion of subsea land of the inner continental shelf in the Gulf of Mexico. Through a peculiarity of the political geography of the United States, this is substantially less than the 9-mile-wide jurisdiction of nearby states Texas and Florida, which, like Louisiana, have extensive Gulf coastlines.

Louisiana has a humid subtropical climate (Koppen climate classification Cfa), perhaps the most "classic" example of a humid subtropical climate of all the Southcentral states, with long, hot, humid summers and short, mild winters. The subtropical characteristics of the state are due in large part to the influence of the Gulf of Mexico, which even at its farthest point is no more than 200 miles (320km) away. Precipitation is frequent throughout the year, although the summer is slightly wetter than the rest of the year. There is a dip in precipitation in October. Southern Louisiana receives far more copious rainfall, especially during the winter months. Summers in Louisiana are hot and humid, with high temperatures from mid-June to mid-September averaging 90 F (32 C) or more and overnight lows averaging above 70 F (22 C). In the summer, the extreme maximum temperature is much warmer in the north than in the south, with temperatures near the Gulf of Mexico occasionally reaching 100 F (38 C), although temperatures above 95 F (35 C) are commonplace. In northern Louisiana, the temperatures reach above 105 F (41 C) in the summer.

Read the original here:
Bed Bug Registry Database Louisiana, Usa, National Bed Bug ...