New Orleans By: Joey, Ethan, Brady, John, and Hutch

Climate

Demographics  Total Population: 484,674  Male: 46.9%  Female: 53.1%  18 years and over: 73.3%  65 years and over: 11.7%  Married Persons: 35.5%  Single Persons: 64.5%  Median Age: 33.1  Average Family Size: 3.23  Ethnicity  White: 28.9%  Black or African American: 67.9%  American Indian and Alaska Native: 0.5%  Asian: 2.5%  Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander: 0.1%  Other: 1.5%  Hispanic or Latino (of any race): 3.1%

Industry The New Orleans economy is dominated by four major sectors: oil/gas and related activities, tourism, the port and ship/boat building, and aerospace manufacturing. The presence of universities, hospitals, legal/accounting and other professional services, together with key installations of the U.S. Navy and other military operations in the region adds further to its diversified economic base. Tourism continues to be the driving force of New Orleans' economy. Boasting attractions such as its magnetic French Quarter, America's largest Mardis Gras festival, and river-boat gambling, New Orleans has a history of solid tourist trade. In a city with more than 10 million visitors annually, the hospitality business supplies more than 66,000 jobs in the service sector such as accommodations and restaurants. In 2004, tourists spent $4.9 billion in New Orleans. Some of New Orleans's largest private employers are shipbuilding firms, where workers build and repair vessels for the U.S. Navy, merchant fleets and cruise ship lines. Martin Marietta, manufacturers of aerospace components for NASA space projects, uses a large work force at its New Orleans operations. In recent years the economy has diversified into such varied fields as health services, aerospace, and research and technology.

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Environment  New Orleans may be a thriving metropolis, but it was once written off as nothing more than an alligator and mosquito-infested swamp. The maze of river, bayous, lakes, and swamps made land access and travel difficult. The semitropical climate provided the perfect breeding conditions for mosquitoes, and diseases, such as yellow fever and malaria, ran rampant. In its earliest days the area was actually referred to as the Isle of Orleans.  Today, New Orleans is defined by the very bodies of water that once made habitation so unlikely. Its nickname—the Crescent City—actually refers to the shape of the land that has been molded by the Mississippi River. The river winds through the city and rushes out into the Gulf of Mexico, which lies 177 kilometers (110 miles) to the south. To the north of the city lies Lake Pontchartrain, actually a coastal lagoon, 40 kilometers (25 miles) wide and 64 kilometers (40 miles) long with a total area of more than 1,606 square kilometers (620 square miles).  The Greater New Orleans area covers about 941 square kilometers (363.5 square miles), but only 514 (198.4) are somewhat dry land. This is because, at five feet below sea level, New Orleans is the lowest point in the state of Louisiana.

Ethnic Groups  Blacks made up about 32.5% of the population in 2000 (the 2nd-highest percentage among the 50 states), and were estimated to number 1,451,944. They include descendants of "free people of color," some of whom were craftsmen and rural property owners before the Civil War (a few were slaveholding plantation owners). Many of these, of mixed blood, are referred to locally as "colored Creoles" and have constituted a black elite in both urban and rural Louisiana. The black population of New Orleans constituted 67.3% of the city's residents in 2000; New Orleans elected its first black mayor, Ernest N. "Dutch" Morial, in  Two groups that have been highly identified with the culture of Louisiana are Creoles and Acadians (also called Cajuns). Both descend primarily from early French immigrants to the state, but the Cajuns trace their origins from the mainly rural people exiled from Acadia (Nova Scotia) in the 1740s, while the Creoles tend to be city people from France and, to a lesser extent, from Nova Scotia or Hispaniola. (The term "Creole" also applies to the relatively few early Spanish settlers and their descendants.)   Although Acadians have intermingled with Spaniards and Germans, they still speak a French patois and retain a distinctive culture and cuisine. In 2000, 179,739 residents claimed Acadian/Cajun ancestry. In 2000, 107,738, or 2.4% of the population, were Hispanic or Latino.  At the time of the 2000 census, 115,885 Louisianians (2.6% of the population) were foreign born. France, Germany, Ireland, and the United Kingdom provided Louisiana with the largest ancestry groups. As of 2000, there were 25,477 American Indians in Louisiana, along with 54,758 and Asians, including 24,358 Vietnamese. Pacific Islanders numbered 1,240.  Louisiana, most notably the Delta region, is an enclave of ethnic heterogeneity in the South. At the end of World War II, the established population of the Delta, according to descent, included blacks, French, Spanish (among them Central and South Americans and Islenos, Spanish-speaking migrants from the Canary Islands), Filipinos, Italians, Chinese, American Indians, and numerous other groups.