List of Louisiana parishes

List of Louisiana parishes

The state of Louisiana is divided into parishes in the same way that the other states of the United States are divided into counties. In colonial Louisiana, which was officially Roman Catholic under both France and Spain, civil government was centered on the ecclesiastical governing unit. After the Louisiana Purchase, Territorial Governor William C. C. Claiborne and his Legislative Council in 1805 divided Orleans Territory into twelve counties. Their boundaries were somewhat indefinite, but they generally coincided with the old church parishes, and kept the same names. In 1807, the territorial legislature passed an act dividing the territory into nineteen parishes — but without abolishing the earlier twelve counties. For several years following this, both terms were used pretty much interchangeably. When a constitutional convention met in 1811 to prepare for Louisiana's admission as a state, they organized the state into seven judicial districts — as groups of parishes. The first official map of the state, in 1816, continued the use of the term, as did the revised Constitution of 1845. Louisiana's primary civil divisions have been officially known as parishes ever since.