Louisiana Parishes Map: Click All 64 Parishes

How many parishes are in Louisiana?

Louisiana has 64 parishes. 23 states have more, and 25 have fewer.

Louisiana is the only state with parishes instead of counties. The name comes from the church parishes that served as local government districts when Louisiana was a French and then Spanish colony. Orleans Parish and the city of New Orleans share one government, and East Baton Rouge Parish holds the capital, Baton Rouge.

How Louisiana's parishes were formed

In 1805 the Territory of Orleans was divided into 12 counties, but in 1807 the legislature created 19 parishes, and the parishes soon took over the counties' work. More were added as plantations and then lumber towns spread. The last new parishes came in 1912, when the old Imperial Calcasieu Parish was divided into Calcasieu, Allen, Beauregard and Jefferson Davis, bringing the total to 64. Many parishes are still governed by a police jury, a name that dates from the early 1800s.

Louisiana regions and the parishes in each

Louisiana's regions are well known. North Louisiana includes Caddo (Shreveport), Bossier, Ouachita (Monroe) and Lincoln (Ruston). Central Louisiana centers on Rapides Parish (Alexandria). Acadiana, the Cajun heartland, covers the southwest and south-central parishes, including Lafayette, St. Martin, Vermilion and Acadia. The Florida Parishes lie east of the Mississippi and north of Lake Pontchartrain, from West Feliciana to St. Tammany. Greater New Orleans takes in Orleans, Jefferson, St. Bernard and Plaquemines, where the river reaches the Gulf.

Notable places on the Louisiana parish map

Driskill Mountain, the state's highest point at 535 feet, is in Bienville Parish, while parts of New Orleans lie below sea level. The Atchafalaya Basin, the largest river swamp in the country, spreads across several parishes, including St. Martin and Iberville. Avery Island, home of Tabasco sauce, is in Iberia Parish, and Poverty Point, a World Heritage Site of earthworks more than 3,000 years old, is in West Carroll Parish.

Louisiana parishes map: the biggest and smallest

Vernon Parish is the largest parish in Louisiana, with 1,327 square miles of land, about 3% of the state. That's more land than the whole state of Rhode Island. Orleans Parish is the smallest, at 170 square miles.

The smallest parishes by land area are Orleans Parish (170 sq mi), West Baton Rouge Parish (192 sq mi) and St. John the Baptist Parish (215 sq mi).

Which parishes in Louisiana have the most people?

East Baton Rouge Parish has the most people, about 453,022 in the Census Bureau's July 2024 estimate, or 10% of everyone in Louisiana. The three biggest parishes together hold 27% of the state's 4,597,740 people. Tensas Parish has the fewest, about 3,844.

The most crowded is Orleans Parish, with about 2,140 people per square mile. The emptiest is Cameron Parish, with about 4 people per square mile. Comparing the two is a quick way to show children that a big parish on the map isn't always a big parish in people.

What parish is Baton Rouge in?

Baton Rouge, the capital of Louisiana, is in East Baton Rouge Parish. It's also the parish with the most people. Louisiana is called the Pelican State, and it became the 18th state in 1812.

Parishes on the Louisiana border

Learning the edge of the map first gives children a frame to fill in. Louisiana shares a border with Arkansas, Mississippi and Texas.

How Louisiana's parishes compare with other states

Louisiana ranks 33rd among the 50 states in land area and 25th in population. Its average parish covers about 675 square miles and holds about 71,840 people. Across the 50 states, the average county-level area covers about 1,139 square miles and holds about 109,381 people, so Louisiana's parishes are smaller than usual in size. Small parishes pack more names into the same space, so zooming in helps.

Landmarks for learning the parishes of Louisiana

• Caddo Parish (Shreveport) is in the northwest corner, next to Texas and Arkansas.
• Orleans and Jefferson parishes sit by Lake Pontchartrain in the southeast.
• Plaquemines Parish follows the Mississippi River out into the Gulf of Mexico.
• The Florida Parishes, east of the Mississippi and north of Lake Pontchartrain, were once part of West Florida.

With 64 parishes, work one region at a time: study it with names on, then take a Practice round and stop when you've found that group. Then print the Louisiana parish map worksheet to check that it sticks on paper.

All 64 Louisiana parishes

Every parish on the map, A to Z, with its land area and July 2024 population estimate.

Louisiana geography for homeschoolers

Pair this map with the Southeast states and capitals quiz and the US states quiz. If you teach at home, see homeschooling in louisiana, and check louisiana esa to see whether a program may help pay for Louisiana history and geography curriculum. Each program decides what it covers.