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Shreveport | Lafayette | Monroe | Alexandria | Lake Charles | History
The Western District of Louisiana consists of 42 of the state's 64 parishes. It is bordered by Texas to the west, Arkansas to the north, the Mississippi River to the east, and the Gulf of Mexico to the south. Geographically, the district encompasses two-thirds of the State of Louisiana. The district has a population in excess of 2 million and is comprised of five of Louisiana's eight major metropolitan areas: Shreveport (200,772); Lafayette (109,957); Lake Charles (73,742); Monroe (55,896); and Alexandria (50,363). Bossier City (56,304) is located just across the Red River from Shreveport. The district has large rural areas with numerous small towns. The district has major interstate highways including Interstate 10 (in the southern part of the district running east to west), Interstate 20 (in the northern part of the district running east to west and Interstate 49 (in the center of the state running north to south).
The State of Louisiana itself is comprised of some 43,562 square miles in land area. Louisiana has a population of 4,465,430. Louisiana's largest city is New Orleans, in the south with a population of 484,674. Louisiana's capital city is Baton Rouge, with a population of 227,818.
Louisiana is strategically located at the mouth of the Mississippi River on the Gulf of Mexico. Its location makes Louisiana the natural gateway into the industrialized Mississippi River Valley, the Sunbelt regions of the Southeast and the Southwest, two of the country's fastest growing regions, and the logical point of export of the goods and products of the American Midwest. Louisiana is a resource-rich state and has manufacturing, information technology, biotechnology, international trade, small business, telecommunications, food processing, agriculture, and forest and seafood industries. Louisiana exported over $16.5 billion dollars in product in 2001. $7.5 billion was in agricultural products, $3.4 billion in chemicals, $2.3 billion in food and related products, and $1.2 billion in petroleum and coal products.