New Orleans - geography.
Publié le 27/05/2013
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levees bordering Lake Pontchartrain.
On the 17th Street Canal, a section about 90 m (about 300 ft) wide collapsed, allowing a torrent of water to enter the city.
The rapidlyrising waters flooded more than 80 percent of New Orleans.
The disaster prompted a mandatory evacuation of the entire city.
A week after the storm, the U.S.
Army Corpsof Engineers finished patching the 17th Street Canal levee and began pumping water out of the city.
But by then the damage was catastrophic.
The city’s low-lying central and eastern areas were hit especially hard by the flooding from Hurricane Katrina.
In those areas, floodwaters reached a depth of 6 m (20 ft) inplaces.
Areas on higher ground were largely spared, including the center core of high-rise buildings, the historic French Quarter and Garden District neighborhoods, andsuburbs such as Algiers.
Rebuilding the city was expected to take years and billions of dollars.
For more information on the effects of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, seethe History section of this article.
A French Quarter
St.
Louis Cathedral, New Orleans, LouisianaThe historical French Quarter in New Orleans, Louisiana, features the St.
Louis Cathedral.
The distinctive, towering spires of thechurch have made it a New Orleans landmark.
The cathedral was built in 1851 and faces Jackson Square.Scott Gilchrist/Masterfile
The French Quarter, also known as the Vieux Carré, is the site of the original settlement.
Exotic houses and wrought-iron balconies reflecting French and Spanisharchitectural styles dominate this unique district’s narrow streets.
The French Quarter’s central plaza is Jackson Square, which features a bronze statue of Andrew Jackson,who led the defense of New Orleans during the War of 1812 (1812-1815) and later became U.S.
president.
The square is surrounded by the Saint Louis Cathedral, built in1794 and remodeled in 1851; the Cabildo and the Presbytère, former government buildings erected in the 18th century; and the Pontalba Buildings, large apartmentbuildings constructed in 1849.
East of Jackson Square on Decatur Street is the French Market, home of numerous shops.
On nearby Chartres Street stands the UrsulineConvent, which was founded by Ursuline nuns in 1734 and is thought to be the oldest building in the Mississippi Valley.
On the eastern boundary of the French Quarter onEsplanade Avenue is the Old U.S.
Mint, which was built in the 19th century and refurbished in 1981.
A streetcar line parallels the Mississippi River and providestransportation from one end of the French Quarter to the other.
Jazz is still a popular attraction on Basin and Bourbon streets, where this treasured American musical formfirst appeared and gained fame in the early 20th century.
B Central Business District
On the western end of the French Quarter is Canal Street, the location of the U.S.
Custom House, which housed the Union Army headquarters during the American Civil War(1861-1865), and the boundary between the French Quarter and the Central Business District, the city's commercial hub.
Riverwalk, a large shopping center, and the NewOrleans Convention Center, which holds hundreds of conferences a year, are the business district's most prominent buildings.
C Garden District
Farther to the west lies the Garden District, a neighborhood of numerous beautiful 19th-century homes.
Still farther west is Uptown, another fine residential neighborhood.The Old Carrollton Court House, now Lucher School, is its most notable structure.
The Saint Charles Avenue Streetcar Line, a national historic landmark, connects Uptownand the Garden District to the Central Business District and the French Quarter.
On the northern side of the city, in the Garden District, and adjacent to the French Quarter,are several cemeteries that are noted for their architecturally distinctive aboveground crypts of marble and granite.
Of special interest is the Saint Louis Cemetery, whichwas unique in its day because it contained not graves but crypts and vaults, since the city’s mud foundations made underground burial impossible.
D Metropolitan Region
The New Orleans metropolitan region covers 8,800 sq km (3,400 sq mi) and includes the counties—known in Louisiana as parishes— of Orleans, Jefferson, Saint Bernard, Saint Charles, Saint John the Baptist, Saint Tammany, Saint James, and Plaquemines.
At the center is the city of New Orleans, which is coextensive with Orleans Parish.
Ithas a land area of 468 sq km (181 sq mi).
Extending from this base are numerous suburban towns in the surrounding parishes.
Metairie, Harahan, and Kenner areresidential communities on the east bank of the Mississippi River in Jefferson Parish, as is LaPlace in St.
John the Baptist Parish.
After the opening of the Mississippi River Bridge in 1958, several communities on the west bank of the river became similar suburban localities.
These include Algiers, whichwas once a noted local center for shipbuilding and railroads and more recently became the location of the Naval Support Activity, and the three communities of Harvey,Marrero, and Gretna in Jefferson Parish.
Gretna is known as the home of the David Crockett Fire Company Number 1, the oldest volunteer fire company in the United States.Chalmette, site of the 1815 Battle of New Orleans and also the location of Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical Company, is a mixed residential-industrial area in St.
BernardParish.
After 1960, due to the opening of Lake Pontchartrain Causeway and Interstate 10, this burgeoning suburban sprawl extended north of Lake Pontchartrain into Slidell,Mandeville, and Covington in St.
Tammany Parish.
III POPULATION
The population of the city of New Orleans substantially declined after large numbers of families began relocating from the inner city to the suburbs in the 1950s.
The city'spopulation peaked at 627,525 in the 1960 census, but that figure shrank to 496,938 by 1990—a loss of nearly one-third over three decades.
In 2000 the city’s populationwas 484,674, and by 2005 it was estimated at 454,863.
Hurricane Katrina further devastated the city’s population.
By October 2006 the city’s population had declined about60 percent to 187,525, according to the first authoritative survey undertaken by agencies of the state of Louisiana.
These figures were yet to be reflected in the numbers forthe population of the entire metropolitan area (including suburban parishes), which was estimated at 1,024,678 as of 2006..
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