103 Fun Facts About New Orleans

Which town did New Orleans replace as the capital of French Louisiana?

Biloxi: soon after the capital moved in 1722, a hurricane blew down most of New Orleans, and it was rebuilt on the grid that is today's French Quarter.

New Orleans's namesake, the Duke of Orléans, ruled France as regent for which boy king?

Louis XV: his parents and his only surviving brother all died in 1712, which left the two-year-old next in line for the throne.

Who founded New Orleans?

Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville chose the site partly because it was high ground on a sharp bend of the river.

Before Europeans arrived, the Choctaw name for the area, Bulbancha, translated as what?

Land of many tongues: the site was a trading hub where many Native peoples with different languages met to trade.

What do New Orleanians call the grassy median running down the middle of a boulevard?

The neutral ground: on Canal Street, the wide median once divided the Creole French Quarter from the new American sector upriver.

Which six-year-old integrated New Orleans's William Frantz Elementary under federal marshals' escort?

Ruby Bridges: nearly all white parents kept their children away, and only one teacher, Barbara Henry, agreed to teach her.

A New Orleans man's arrest in a whites-only train car led to which Supreme Court case?

Plessy v. Ferguson: a civil rights committee staged the 1892 arrest to test the law, but the Court upheld 'separate but equal' in 1896.

Why do so few buildings in the French Quarter date from the French colonial era?

Two great fires destroyed them, in 1788 and 1794, and the city rebuilt in brick, so most of the Quarter's buildings date from after the blazes.

What is the French Quarter's other common name?

Vieux Carré means 'Old Square', and because the district sits on higher ground, it stayed largely dry when Hurricane Katrina flooded most of the city.

Bourbon Street takes its name from what?

France's royal family: engineer Adrien de Pauger named the street for the House of Bourbon in 1721, before bourbon whiskey even existed.

New Orleans became part of the United States through which 1803 deal?

The Louisiana Purchase: US envoys had set out to buy New Orleans, and were stunned when France offered all of Louisiana for $15 million.

Which French Quarter bar is known as the home of the Hurricane cocktail?

Pat O'Brien's: distributors reportedly made bars take cases of rum to get whiskey, so the bar mixed the surplus into its fruity Hurricane.

Who commanded the American forces at the Battle of New Orleans on January 8, 1815?

Andrew Jackson: his army lost fewer than 100 men against about 2,000 British casualties, and the fame of the victory later helped carry him to the White House.

The Battle of New Orleans was fought 15 days after which peace agreement had already been signed?

The Treaty of Ghent: word of it hadn't crossed the Atlantic, and the US didn't ratify it until February 16, 1815, so the war wasn't officially over.

Which pirate led the privateers who fought alongside the Americans in 1815?

Jean Lafitte traded his smugglers' help for a pardon, and President Madison granted it, but Lafitte soon went back to his illicit trade from Galveston Island.

Before it was renamed for a war hero, what was the French Quarter's main square called?

Place d'Armes was the colonial parade ground, and the Baroness de Pontalba later paid for its makeover with an iron fence and formal gardens.

Which engineer's pump system let New Orleans build on former swampland?

A. Baldwin Wood's giant screw pumps, installed in the 1910s, drained enough swamp for the city to spread, and his pump designs were later used in Egypt, China and India.

As of 2025, the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway holds a Guinness World Record for what?

Longest continuous span over water: when China's Jiaozhou Bay Bridge was touted as longer in 2011, the Causeway disputed it, and Guinness now lists a separate 'continuous' title.

Lake Pontchartrain is technically what kind of body of water?

An estuary: it joins the Gulf through the Rigolets and Lake Borgne while rivers pour in fresh water, so its water is brackish.

The day before Hurricane Katrina struck, New Orleans's mayor issued the city's first-ever what?

Mandatory evacuation order: most residents left, but many people without cars or anywhere to go were stuck in the city when the water rose.

Which New Orleans newspaper kept publishing after Katrina forced it from its building, winning a Pulitzer Prize?

The Times-Picayune: it published online only until it could print again, using another newspaper's presses in Houma.

As of 2025, what distinction does the St. Charles Avenue streetcar line hold?

The world's oldest operating streetcar line: it opened in 1835 with steam locomotives, switched to horse and mule cars, and was electrified in 1893.

Which playwright lived in New Orleans early in his career and set A Streetcar Named Desire there?

Tennessee Williams took the title from a real transit line, Desire, which ran through the French Quarter to Desire Street until 1948.

Which open space in Louis Armstrong Park is famed for the music and dancing once held there?

Congo Square: on Sundays during the colonial and early American periods, enslaved and free people gathered there to buy and sell goods.

After a New Year's Eve arrest, young Louis Armstrong was sent to a boys' home, where he learned which instrument?

The cornet: teacher Peter Davis taught him to play it properly, then chose him to lead the home's brass band.

The New Orleans airport code MSY comes from what?

Moisant Stock Yards: aviator John Moisant died in a 1910 crash on the site, which became a stockyard bearing his name and later Moisant Field.

Which New Orleans jazz venue started out as an art gallery?

Preservation Hall: owner Larry Borenstein began inviting musicians to play sessions in his gallery, and in 1961 it became a music venue.

The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival is held annually at what venue?

The Fair Grounds Race Course: only about 350 people came to the first festival in 1970, about half the number of performers, and it moved to the racetrack in 1972.

Fats Domino lived most of his life in which New Orleans neighbourhood, staying there through Katrina?

The Lower Ninth Ward: he stayed there as Katrina hit partly because his wife was ill, and the Coast Guard rescued him from his flooded home.

Which secret Carnival society was founded in New Orleans in 1856?

The Mistick Krewe of Comus: several founders had come from Mobile, whose Cowbellion de Rakin Society was part of their inspiration.

The Rex Organization staged its first Mardi Gras parade in 1872 in honour of a visit by whom?

Grand Duke Alexei of Russia: businessmen invented Rex, a mock King of Carnival, partly to give the royal visitor a grand daytime parade.

The Zulu krewe is famous for giving out what unusual throw?

Hand-painted coconuts: injury lawsuits cost Zulu its insurance in 1987, until the state passed a 'Coconut Bill' shielding the throws from liability.

Café du Monde's café au lait, served with beignets, is made with coffee and what?

The chicory blend was a Civil War-era workaround for coffee shortages that simply never went away.

The po' boy's name is said to come from free sandwiches for which striking workers in 1929?

Streetcar conductors: the Martin brothers, once conductors themselves, reportedly greeted each striker who came in as 'another poor boy'.

The muffuletta sandwich is said to have been created in 1906 at which French Quarter shop?

Central Grocery: founder Salvatore Lupo, a Sicilian immigrant, is credited with it, and the sandwich takes its name from the round Sicilian loaf it's built on.

Filé powder, one of the classic gumbo thickeners, is made from the ground leaves of which tree?

The other traditional thickener is okra, and gumbos are often classified by which one the cook uses.

Which dish is traditionally eaten in New Orleans on Mondays?

Red beans and rice: Monday was washday, so a pot of beans could simmer all day while the laundry got done.

Which classic New Orleans cocktail shares its name with a brand of French cognac?

The Sazerac: it was first made with cognac, but American rye whiskey was later substituted as its main spirit.

What is hidden inside a New Orleans king cake?

A tiny plastic baby: whoever finds it in their slice is traditionally on the hook for buying the next king cake or hosting the next party.

As of 2025, the Saints' only Super Bowl win, Super Bowl XLIV, came against which team?

Indianapolis Colts: the Saints opened the second half with a surprise onside kick, recovered it and soon took their first lead of the game.

On which appropriate date in 1966 was New Orleans awarded its NFL franchise?

November 1, All Saints' Day: Commissioner Pete Rozelle announced the franchise that day, and a few months later the team was named the Saints.

The Saints' logo is which symbol, also an emblem of New Orleans?

A fleur-de-lis: after Hurricane Katrina, it spread across New Orleans as a symbol of support for the city's recovery.

Which Saints kicker's 63-yard field goal in 1970 set an NFL record that stood for 43 years?

Tom Dempsey: the kick beat Detroit 19–17 on the game's final play, and Matt Prater only topped it by a yard in 2013.

Which New Orleans restaurant created Bananas Foster, the flaming banana dessert?

Brennan's: chef Paul Blangé created it there, and it was named for Richard Foster, a friend of owner Owen Brennan.

Where did the Saints play their home games before the Superdome opened in 1975?

Tulane Stadium: it also hosted three of the first nine Super Bowls, the last in January 1975, because construction delays kept the Superdome from opening in time.

Under what name did the Pelicans NBA franchise arrive in the city in 2002?

The Hornets: they moved from Charlotte, spent two seasons in Oklahoma City after Katrina, and renamed themselves the Pelicans in 2013.

Which Hollywood actor bought a pyramid-shaped tomb in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 in 2010 as his resting place?

Nicolas Cage: he had also bought the French Quarter's LaLaurie Mansion in 2007, but lost it in a 2009 foreclosure auction.

Which famed 19th-century Voodoo priestess was born free in New Orleans in 1801?

Marie Laveau: she was known for ministering to prisoners in the city's jail, including those who had been sentenced to death.

The great church on Jackson Square is the oldest what in the United States?

It shares that distinction with the Royal Presidio Chapel in Monterey, California, and was elevated to cathedral status in 1793.

The Garden District was annexed by New Orleans in 1852 after being part of which separate city?

Its mansions later attracted novelist Anne Rice, who bought one of the district's grand houses in 1989.

Tulane University was founded in 1834 under what original name?

The Medical College of Louisiana: founded by a group of young doctors, it became a public university before merchant Paul Tulane's gifts turned it private in 1884.

The Crescent City Connection carries traffic over the Mississippi on twin bridges of what type?

Cantilever: the first span opened in 1958 as the Greater New Orleans Bridge, and the pair was renamed after a 1989 public naming contest.

Frenchmen Street's live-music hub is in which neighbourhood just downriver from the French Quarter?

Faubourg Marigny: Creole landowner Bernard de Marigny carved his plantation into lots in 1806, and Frenchmen Street's music clubs took off there in the 1980s.

Which navigation canal connects the Mississippi River to Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans?

The Industrial Canal: wharves and docks were built along its banks, making it an industrial port as well as a shipping route.

Because of its busy film industry, New Orleans has picked up which nickname?

Hollywood South: after the state passed film tax credits in 2002, so many productions arrived that the city and state earned the nickname.

New Orleans was once the state capital; which city holds that role today?

Baton Rouge: lawmakers moved the seat of government there in the 1840s, and the city donated a plot for a castle-style capitol.

The beignet is an official state doughnut; which other state has named an official doughnut?

Massachusetts: it named the Boston cream its state doughnut in 2003, borrowing from Boston cream pie, which is really a sponge cake.

Which 1811 uprising saw up to 500 enslaved people march toward New Orleans?

The German Coast rebellion: troops and militia crushed the two-day march, and captured rebels were executed and their heads put on display to scare others.

Which Union general, nicknamed 'Beast', became military governor of New Orleans in 1862?

Benjamin F. Butler: his order that any woman insulting Union troops be treated as a prostitute led Confederate general Beauregard to brand him 'Butler the Beast'.

Which civil rights group took shape at 1957 meetings in Atlanta, New Orleans and Montgomery?

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference: with Martin Luther King Jr. as president, it went on to coordinate the 1963 Birmingham protests.

Which New Orleans mayor had four Confederate monuments taken down in 2017?

Mitch Landrieu: threats drove contractors off the job, and one contractor even had his car set on fire.

In 2010, the NFL fought T-shirt shops over which Saints chant?

Who dat: after Senator David Vitter demanded the league drop its claim, the NFL backed off and said it did not claim the phrase by itself.

Which rapper grew up in New Orleans's Hollygrove neighbourhood?

Lil Wayne: as a boy he recorded rhymes on the answering machine of a Cash Money Records co-founder, who took him under his wing.

Which fried chicken chain did Al Copeland start in the New Orleans suburb of Arabi in 1972?

Popeyes opened as Chicken on the Run, and Copeland said the later name came from Popeye Doyle, the detective in The French Connection, not the cartoon sailor.

Which Disney princess is a waitress in 1920s New Orleans who dreams of opening her own restaurant?

Tiana, Disney's first African American princess, was partly inspired by New Orleans chef Leah Chase, who waited tables before running a restaurant of her own.

The 'holy trinity' of New Orleans cooking is onion, celery and which other vegetable?

Bell pepper replaced the carrot of the French cook's mirepoix, because peppers grew far more easily in Louisiana, and the trio became the base of gumbo and jambalaya.

Which British band hit number one in 1964 with The House of the Rising Sun, set in New Orleans?

The Animals made the old folk song the first British Invasion number one unconnected with the Beatles, having picked it to stand out on a tour with Chuck Berry.

The NBA's Jazz, named for the music of New Orleans, moved in 1979 to which state?

Utah kept the Jazz name only because there was no time to get the league to approve a new one before the first season in Salt Lake City.

Which quarterback, signed months after Hurricane Katrina, was MVP of the Saints' first Super Bowl win?

Drew Brees completed 32 of 39 passes and threw two touchdowns in Super Bowl XLIV, tying the game's record for completions.

Mardi Gras in New Orleans ends at midnight, when which Christian season begins?

Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, and Mardi Gras, French for Fat Tuesday, was the last chance to eat up rich, fatty food before the fast.

Which New Orleans-born novelist set her 1976 debut, Interview with the Vampire, in the city?

Anne Rice wrote the novel while living in California, yet New Orleans, where she spent most of her youth, is the backdrop to much of her fiction.

Which filmmaker, born in New Orleans in 1969, created and plays the sharp-tongued grandmother Madea?

Tyler Perry was born Emmitt Perry Jr. and first played Madea on stage in 1999, in his play I Can Do Bad All by Myself.

Louisiana is split into which units instead of counties, one sharing its borders with New Orleans?

Parishes grew out of the colonial church districts whose borders the early counties roughly followed, and the city of New Orleans exactly fills the one named Orleans.

Which nickname of New Orleans trumpeter Louis Armstrong is said to be a joke about his wide mouth?

Satchmo is short for Satchelmouth, and in 2001, a century after his birth, New Orleans renamed its main airport for Armstrong.

Which Saints quarterback, drafted second overall in 1971, later raised two sons who won Super Bowls?

Archie Manning retired without ever playing on a team that had a winning record, then watched his sons Peyton and Eli lift the trophy he never got near.

New Orleans pralines replaced the almonds of the French original with which locally plentiful nut?

Pecans went in along with cream, which thickened the candy into the soft, fudge-like praline made across the American South.

Which narrow New Orleans house style lines its rooms up one behind another, with a door at each end?

Shotgun houses are said to be named for the idea that a blast fired through the front doorway would fly cleanly out of the back.

Which New Orleans nickname may recall how readily early jazz musicians found work in the city?

The Big Easy also became the title of a 1980s crime thriller starring Dennis Quaid and Ellen Barkin, set and shot on location in New Orleans.

Which TV chef ran Commander's Palace's kitchen before opening his own New Orleans restaurant in 1990?

Emeril Lagasse took over at Commander's Palace from Paul Prudhomme in 1982, and later found Food Network fame with the catchphrase Bam.

Which college football classic was first played in New Orleans on New Year's Day 1935?

Sugar Bowl organisers have had to leave New Orleans just once, moving the 2006 game to Atlanta after Hurricane Katrina wrecked the Superdome.

Which French Quarter restaurant, open since 1840, is the birthplace of oysters Rockefeller?

Antoine's named the dish for John D. Rockefeller, then the wealthiest American, because the sauce was so rich, and its recipe remains a secret.

New Orleans's cemeteries, crowded with above-ground tombs, are known by which nickname?

Cities of the Dead fits: a high water table pushed the tombs above ground, and they stand in regular rows laid out like streets.

Which rapper from New Orleans's Calliope Projects built the No Limit Records empire in the 1990s?

Master P began No Limit as a record shop in Richmond, California, and moved the label home to New Orleans in 1995.

New Orleans's Uptown park and zoo honour which painter of birds, who moved to the city in 1821?

John James Audubon sailed from New Orleans to England in 1826 with a portfolio of over 300 drawings, hunting for someone to publish The Birds of America.

Which New Orleans neighbourhood, long home to free people of colour, gave its name to an HBO drama?

Tremé is the setting of David Simon's series about residents piecing their lives back together in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Which New Orleans-born trumpeter won the first Pulitzer Prize for Music given to a jazz composition?

Wynton Marsalis won in 1997 for his oratorio Blood on the Fields, having grown up as one of six sons of the pianist and teacher Ellis Marsalis.

Which New Orleans word, noted by Mark Twain, means a small free gift thrown in with a sale?

Lagniappe reached Louisiana French from a Quechua word for something added, which travelled to New Orleans all the way from the Andes.

Which city claims America's oldest Carnival, begun in 1703, before New Orleans existed?

Mobile's French soldiers and settlers first kept Mardi Gras fifteen years before New Orleans was even founded.

Which Pulitzer-winning comic novel follows Ignatius J. Reilly, who lives with his mother in New Orleans?

A Confederacy of Dunces reached print only after John Kennedy Toole's death, when his mother Thelma and the novelist Walker Percy got it published.

Which James Bond film has a New Orleans brass band play a funeral march before the opening titles?

Live and Let Die chose jazz funerals over Mardi Gras because Thunderball, an earlier Bond film, had already shown a similar street festival.

Which author of In Cold Blood and Breakfast at Tiffany's was born in New Orleans in 1924?

Truman Capote was born at Touro Infirmary but was soon sent to relatives in Monroeville, Alabama, where his neighbour and friend was Harper Lee.

Which New Orleans hip-hop style, born in the city's housing projects, made a star of Big Freedia?

Bounce is built on call-outs and chants rapped over the Triggerman beat, a loop sampled from the Showboys' track Drag Rap.

Which Saints player's blocked punt, in the Superdome's first game after Hurricane Katrina, became a statue?

Steve Gleason's statue outside the Superdome is named Rebirth, and his campaigning after an ALS diagnosis earned him a Congressional Gold Medal in 2019.

Which European power took over New Orleans from France in the 1760s and ruled for some forty years?

Spain gained Louisiana after France's defeat in the Seven Years' War, though the residents of New Orleans resisted their new Spanish rulers.

Which disease killed thousands in New Orleans in 1853, the worst of its repeated summer epidemics?

Yellow fever, carried by mosquitoes, kept coming back until New Orleans stamped out a final outbreak in 1905.

Refugees from a slave revolution in which present-day country doubled New Orleans's population in 1809?

Haiti's revolution scattered planters, free people of colour and the enslaved alike, and the 1809 wave reached New Orleans after being expelled from Cuba.

The National WWII Museum is in New Orleans because which D-Day workhorses were built there?

Higgins boats, the ramp-fronted landing craft, were designed, tested and built in New Orleans, and Eisenhower said their inventor had won the war for the Allies.

The 1891 lynching of eleven men in New Orleans led which country to break off diplomatic relations?

Italy cut ties with Washington amid rumours of war, because the mob's victims were Italian Americans, some just acquitted of murdering the city's police chief.

Which Union naval officer fought past two river forts to capture New Orleans in the Civil War?

David Farragut was honoured within months, when Congress created for him the rank of rear admiral, never before used in the US Navy.

Which 1965 hurricane, the first to do a billion dollars of damage, flooded parts of New Orleans?

Betsy, soon nicknamed Billion Dollar Betsy, drove a storm surge into the lake north of New Orleans and swamped several neighbourhoods.

Which order of nuns reached New Orleans in 1727 and built the convent often called its oldest building?

Ursulines from Rouen came at the governor's request to found a convent, run a hospital and educate the colony's young girls.

Which New Orleans socialite fled abroad after a mob sacked her mansion over her torture of enslaved people?

Delphine LaLaurie escaped to France and was never brought to justice, and Kathy Bates won an Emmy playing a fictionalised version of her in American Horror Story.

Which British general, brother-in-law of the Duke of Wellington, was killed at the Battle of New Orleans?

Edward Pakenham's body was sent home in a cask of rum and buried in his family's vault in County Westmeath, Ireland.