New Orleans

**New Orleans** (/ˈɔːrl(i)ənz, ɔːrˈliːnz/,[3][4] 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 391,006 in 2018,[5] it is the most populous city in Louisiana. Serving as a major port, New Orleans is considered an economic and commercial hub for the broader Gulf Coast region of the United States.

New Orleans is world-renowned for its distinct music, Creole cuisine, unique dialect, 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"[6] in the United States,[7][8][9][10][11] owing in large part to its cross-cultural and multilingual heritage.[12] Founded in 1718 by French colonists, New Orleans was once the territorial capital of French Louisiana before 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,[13] 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 such factors as high rainfall, low lying elevation, poor natural drainage and location next 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.[14]

New Orleans was severely affected by Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, which flooded more than 80% of the city, killed or displaced thousands of residents, causing a population decline of over 50%.[15] Since Katrina, major redevelopment efforts have led to a rebound in the city's population. Concerns about gentrification, new residents buying property in formerly closely knit communities, and displacement of longtime residents have been expressed.[16]

The city and Orleans Parish (French: *paroisse d'Orléans*) are coterminous.[17] As of 2017, Orleans Parish is the third most-populous parish in Louisiana, behind East Baton Rouge Parish and neighboring Jefferson Parish.[18] 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 New Orleans metropolitan area, which had an estimated population of 1,275,762 in 2017. It is the most populous metropolitan area in Louisiana and the 46th-most populous MSA in the United States.

### Entertainment and Performing Arts

The New Orleans area is home to numerous annual celebrations. The most well known is Carnival, or Mardi Gras. Carnival officially begins on the Feast of the Epiphany, also known in some Christian traditions as the "Twelfth Night" of Christams. *Mardi Gras* (French for "Fat Tuesday"), the final and grandest day of traditional Catholic festivities, is the last Tuesday before the Christian liturgical season of Lent, which commences on Ash Wednesday.

The largest of the city's many music festivals is the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. Commonly referred to simply as "Jazz Fest", it is one of the nation's largest music festivals. The festival features a variety of music, including both native Louisiana and international artists. Along with Jazz Fest, New Orleans' Voodoo Experience ("Voodoo Fest") and the Essence Music Festival also feature local and international artists.

Other major festivals include Southern Decadence, the French Quarter Festival, and the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival. The American playwright lived and wrote in New Orleans early in his career, and set his play, *Streetcar Named Desire,* there.

In 2002, Louisiana began offering tax incentives for film and television production. This has resulted in a substantial increase in activity and brought the nickname of "Hollywood South" for New Orleans. Films produced in and around the city include *Ray*, *Runaway Jury*, *The Pelican Brief*, *Glory Road*, *All the King's Men*, *Déjà Vu*, *Last Holiday*, *The Curious Case of Benjamin Button* and *12 Years a Slave*. In 2006, work began on the Louisiana Film & Television studio complex, based in the Tremé neighborhood.[145] Louisiana began to offer similar tax incentives for music and theater productions in 2007, and some commentators began to refer to New Orleans as "Broadway South."[146]

The first theatre in New Orleans was the French-language Theatre de la Rue Saint Pierre, which opened in 1792. The first opera in New Orleans was performed there in 1796. In the nineteenth century, the city was the home of two of America's most important venues for French opera, the Théâtre d'Orléans and later the French Opera House. Today, opera is performed by the New Orleans Opera. The Marigny Opera House is home to the Marigny Opera Ballet and also hosts opera, jazz, and classical music performances.

New Orleans has long been a significant center for music, showcasing its intertwined European, African and Latin American cultures. The city's unique musical heritage was born in its colonial and early American days from a unique blending of European musical instruments with African rhythms. As the only North American city to have allowed slaves to gather in public and play their native music (largely in Congo Square, now located within Louis Armstrong Park), New Orleans gave birth in the early 20th century to an epochal indigenous music: jazz. Soon, African-American brass bands formed, beginning a century-long tradition. The Louis Armstrong Park area, near the French Quarter in Tremé, contains the New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park. The city's music was later also significantly influenced by Acadiana, home of Cajun and Zydeco music, and by Delta blues.

New Orleans' unique musical culture is on display in its traditional funerals. A spin on military funerals, New Orleans' traditional funerals feature sad music (mostly dirges and hymns) in processions on the way to the cemetery and happier music (hot jazz) on the way back. Until the 1990s, most locals preferred to call these "funerals with music." Visitors to the city have long dubbed them "jazz funerals."

Much later in its musical development, New Orleans was home to a distinctive brand of rhythm and blues that contributed greatly to the growth of rock and roll. An example of the New Orleans' sound in the 1960s is the #1 US hit "Chapel of Love" by the Dixie Cups, a song which knocked the Beatles out of the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100. New Orleans became a hotbed for funk music in the 1960s and 1970s, and by the late 1980s, it had developed its own localized variant of hip hop, called bounce music. While not commercially successful outside of the Deep South, bounce music was immensely popular in poorer neighborhoods throughout the 1990s.

A cousin of bounce, New Orleans hip hop achieved commercial success locally and internationally, producing Lil Wayne, Master P, Birdman, Juvenile, Cash Money Records and No Limit Records. Additionally, the popularity of cowpunk, a fast form of southern rock, originated with the help of several local bands, such as The Radiators, Better Than Ezra, Cowboy Mouth and Dash Rip Rock. Throughout the 1990s, many sludge metal bands started. New Orleans' heavy metal bands such as Eyehategod,[147] Soilent Green,[148] Crowbar,[149] and Down[150] incorporated styles such as hardcore punk, doom metal, and southern rock to create an original and heady brew of swampy and aggravated metal that has largely avoided standardization.[147][148][149][150]

New Orleans is the southern terminus of the famed Highway 61, made musically famous by musician Bob Dylan in his song, "Highway 61 Revisited".

## Links:

-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New\_Orleans

-https://www.neworleans.com/

-https://www.nola.com/

-https://www.earthcam.com/usa/louisiana/neworleans/bourbonstreet/?cam=catsmeow2