Louisana Facts

• Louisiana was named in honor of King Louis XIV.
• Louisiana is the only state in the union that does not have counties. Its political subdivisions are called parishes.
• Metairie is home to the longest bridge over water in the world, the Lake Pontchartrain causeway. The causeway connects Metairie with St. Tammany Parish on the North Shore. The causeway is 24 miles long.
• In Louisiana, biting someone with your natural teeth is considered a simple assault, but biting someone with your false teeth is considered an aggravated assault.
• The Catahoula Leopard Dog, often called the Catahoula Hound, is the official state dog.
• Louisiana has the tallest state capitol building in the United States; the building is 450 feet tall with 34 floors.
• The Magnolia is the state flower.
• The state crustacean is the Crawfish.
• The first opera performed in America was in 1796 in New Orleans.
• Louisiana is America's second largest producer of natural gas. It supplies one-third of the total U.S. production.
• Louisiana is the largest producer of oysters in the United States.
• Louisiana leads the nation in the production of crawfish with approximately 100 million pounds of crawfish per year.