Louisiana doesn’t do anything the way most of the country does. It named its counties something else, uses a different legal system, and built a statehouse taller than its tallest hill. It also gave us jazz and the loudest party in the United States.
Here are ten Louisiana fun facts worth sharing in your next lesson.
1. People Call It the Pelican State
The nickname comes from the brown pelicans that nest along the Gulf Coast. On the state flag, you’ll see a mother pelican feeding three chicks. Pesticides nearly finished off the species in the 1960s, so biologists restocked the coast with birds from Florida.
2. Louisiana Is Home to About Two Million Wild Alligators
State biologists estimate the wild population of alligators at about two million. Farms raise another million or so. That works out to roughly one alligator for every two people living in the state.
Surprisingly, they nearly weren’t here at all. Hunters had stripped the marshes so much that the federal government listed the American alligator as endangered in 1967. Louisiana shut the hunting season down and reopened it years later under a strict tag system.
Farmers now collect wild eggs and return a share of the grown juveniles to the marsh. The alligator was removed from the endangered list in 1987. Wildlife agencies still point to it as one of the clearest wins the Endangered Species Act ever produced.
3. The State Capitol Building is 450 Feet Tall
Governor Huey Long wanted a skyscraper, not a statehouse, and his crews finished one in 14 months flat. The state capitol building in Baton Rouge opened in 1932. It stands at 450 feet tall and has 34 floors. It is the tallest state capitol in the country.
4. A French King Gave the State Its Name
In 1682, the explorer René-Robert Cavelier de La Salle floated down the Mississippi River. He claimed the whole valley for France, and named it La Louisiane after King Louis XIV, or “Land of Louis.” Baton Rouge is French as well; explorers found a red-stained pole marking a hunting boundary and jotted down “red stick.”
5. Native American Nations Shaped the Land First
People were building on a grand scale here long before any Europeans arrived. Around 1700 BCE, Native American workers hauled millions of basketloads of dirt. They built the ridges and mounds at Poverty Point, in the northeast corner of the state.
UNESCO now lists the site as a World Heritage site, alongside places like Stonehenge.
Four tribes hold federal recognition in Louisiana today, among them the Chitimacha and the Coushatta. Their languages are Atchafalaya, Natchitoches, Caddo, and Ponchatoula.
6. Lake Peigneur Accident
In November 1980, a drilling rig on Lake Peigneur punched a hole into an active salt mine tunneled underneath it. The lake drained into the mine like a bathtub. A whirlpool swallowed the rig, eleven barges, a tugboat, and about 65 acres of shoreline. Amazingly, everyone survived.
Water from a canal reversed direction and poured in as a 150-foot waterfall for a few hours. The lake refilled with saltwater and has been a different ecosystem ever since.
7. Louis Armstrong Learned His First Notes in New Orleans
Louis Armstrong was born in New Orleans in 1901, in a neighborhood so rough locals called it the Battlefield. At 11, they sent him to a home for troubled boys. While there, someone handed him a cornet.
Within 20 years, he’d changed what a soloist could do, and singers still copy how he bent a melody. The city named its airport after him.
8. Mardi Gras Counts as an Official State Holiday
Louisiana is home to the only Mardi Gras that state law treats as a legal holiday. Clubs called krewes spend all year building floats and hoarding beads, cups, and stamped aluminum coins called doubloons to throw.
9. The Mississippi River Finishes Its Trip Here
After about 2,340 miles, the Mississippi River finally gives up and spreads into the Gulf through Louisiana’s delta. That mouth made the state a shipping giant. The Port of South Louisiana moves more cargo by weight than any other American port.
10. A Bridge Crosses Lake Pontchartrain for 24 Miles
Lake Pontchartrain covers around 630 square miles north of New Orleans and holds brackish water, part fresh and part salt. Two parallel roads, called the Causeway, carry drivers nearly 24 miles across it.
For about eight miles in the middle, there’s no land in sight in any direction. This unnerves first-timers considerably. Guinness ranks it the longest continuous bridge over water on earth.
11. Louisiana Is the Only State That Ignores English Common Law
Forty-nine states inherited their legal system from England. There, judges settle cases by following earlier court decisions. Louisiana uses a hybrid civil law system rooted in French and Spanish colonial history. There, the written code comes first, and old rulings carry less weight.
Future lawyers hoping to practice there face one of the longest bar exams in the country. Because so little of the material overlaps with what students memorize everywhere else.
More Fun Facts About Louisiana
Louisiana is the only state to have a dog breed developed entirely inside its borders. It also grows most of the crawfish Americans eat.
Louisiana has 64 parishes, known as counties in almost all other states.
We hope you’ve enjoyed learning about how amazing Louisiana is. For more state facts, check out our other state fun fact blog posts.
