=1= THE LOUISIANA PLACES | LES PLACES DE LA LOUISIANE
The Louisiana Places / les Places Louisiana is a place name project that seeks to identify mapped places with English names with their corresponding French names.
Most geographic features were named with English names by monolingual Anglophones geographers who ignored local francophone naming traditions in compiling official state, federal and parish maps.
These local francophone naming traditions existed from the French and Spanish colonial period in the 18th Century to the early 19th Century at the time of the Louisiana Purchase and continued after statehood in 1812 well into the Twentieth Century.
=2= PROJECT GOALS
The goals of the Louisiana Places Project is to:
-1- research Louisiana French naming traditions as used by Cajuns and Creoles of Color;
-2- utilize these naming traditions to develops systems of translations of existing features;
-3- identify places which are not yet identified as features within the GNIS database;
-4- seek official US and state agency recognition of the places identified as geographic features;
-5- participate as volunteers in the National Map Corps sponsored by the US Geological Survey;
-6- develop maps of these features.
=3= PROJECT MAPS
=Map 1= Louisiana State Public Land Survey System: Townships, Ranges, Meridians, and Baselines, Inhabited Places and Post Offices | Scale: 1 Inch = 10 Miles
Download
=Map 02-A= Louisiana State and its Parishes | Percentage – Black Population
2010 Census Tracts & 2000 Cities Greater than 10,000
Geographic Name Information System (GNIS) Post Offices
Scale: 1″ = 633,600 — 1″ = 10.0 Miles — 1″ = 52,800 Feet
Download
=Map 02-B= Louisiana State and its Parishes | Density per Acre – Black Population
2010 Census Tracts & 2000 Cities Greater than 10,000
Geographic Name Information System (GNIS) Post Offices
Scale: 1″ = 633,600 — 1″ = 10.0 Miles — 1″ = 52,800 Feet
Download
=4= PROJECT DATA TABLES
The project has identified 42,361 unique geographic feature names as used by the United States Geographic Information Naming System (GNIS) as managed by the US Board of Geographic Names (BGN). These fields are coded for over 250 separate fields such as their location within city limits, urbanized areas, parishes, wildlife areas, soils, national forest, and census data tracts.
There are 42,361 places in the database in the form of rows. Each place has a row and each row has 252 columns. Each column is a data field containing information about the place.
The data fields are classified into four basic kinds of information:
-1- localization data in terms of its name, its GNIS number, latitude and longitude, parish, location in unincorporated areas, towns, and meter areas.
-2- ecological data in terms of soil types, ecological zones, geological development, drainage basins and subsegments.
-3- text data in terms of an analysis of its name as exampled these words in its name: plantation, bayou, lake, reservation, trailer parks, parks, historical, and about 95 more terms.
-4- census data in terms of the census tract where the feature is located as exampled by race, gender, age, household and family size.
=5= DUPLICATE FEATURES WITHIN ORIGINAL DATA
The original data was attached to a January 4, 2013 email from the staff of the Board of Geographic Names. The data was in two files, which were sent as formatted text, which was parsed and then saved to two different tabs within one Excel file, which is available for download.
One data file was the approved, official names (LA_Features_20121001.txt) while the second set contained some of these official names along with secondary (variant) names (La_variants_names_01042013.txt). The total of all geographic features in both files was 52,712 of which 11,352 were classified as duplicates.
The 52,712 features were sorted and processed to find the degree of similarity between points. These features were compared three ways:
-1- the same name
-2- the same GNIS identification number
-3- the same latitude and/or longitude to five decimal places.
There are some true uniques in which all of three classification criteria were different, but many features that share one or two similarities.
Some duplication was expected: Some features had different names, but has the the GNIS number and the same geographic coordinates.
But all of these criteria covaried: For example, a feature might have the same latitude and longitude, but with different names and at times with the same or different GNIS identification number. Some features might share the same latitude to five decimal places, but would have a different longitude.
The data set with all 252 field has analyzed these three criteria and then classified the resulting data set into kinds of similarities.
The resulting categories of duplicate names are:
-1- Unique Name; Unique GNIS#; Near Lat/Long
-2- Unique Name; Unique GNIS#; Dup Lat/Long;
-3- Unique Name; Dup GNIS#; Dup Lat/Long;
-4- Duplicate Name; Unique GNIS#; Unique Lat/Long;
-5- Duplicate Name; Unique GNIS#; Near Lat/Long
-6- Duplicate Name: Duplicate GNIS#; Unique Lat/Long
-7- Duplicate Name; Duplicate GNIS#; Near Lat/Long
-8- Duplicate Name: Duplicate GNIS#; Duplicate Lat/Long;
If all of the criteria listed above were the same as in number -8- above, then the feature was classified as a duplicate and not included in the final data set.
=6= DISTRIBUTION OF TABULAR DATA
-1- Portable document pages (pdf)
-3.1- 42,361 places as described by 17 essential
-3.2- 17 Essential data fields and their definitions
-3.3- 252 data fields and their definitions
-2- Spreadsheets
-4.1- all 42,361 places as described by 17 essential fields
Download LA_GNIS_Placename_All_Pts_+_17_fields_1x0.xls
-4.2- all 42,362 places as described by 252 fields
Download LA_GNIS_Placename_All_Pts_+_250_fields_1x0.xls
-3- Geographic information System Files
-5.1- Shape (Zip) and CSV files
-5.1.1- The essential data fields used to itdentify a place name
Download LA_GNIS_Placename_All_Pts_+_17_Fields_1x0.zip
Download LA_GNIS_Placename_All_Pts_+_17_Fields_1x0.csv
-5.1.2- All of the data fields used to identify a place name
Download LA_GNIS_Placename_All_Pts_+_250_Fields_1x0.zip
Download LA_GNIS_Placename_All_Pts_+_250_Fields_1x0.csv
-5.1.3- The essential data fields plus the census data fields
Download LA_GNIS_Placename_All_Pts_Census_Fields_1x0.zip
Download LA_GNIS_Placename_All_Pts_Census_Fields_1x0.csv
-5.1.4- The essential data fields plus the ecological data fields
Download LA_GNIS_Placename_All_Pts_Ecological_Fields_1x0.zip
Download LA_GNIS_Placename_All_Pts_Ecological_Fields_1x0.csv
-5.1.5- essential data fields plus the place name text analysis data fields
Download LA_GNIS_Placename_All_Pts_Text_Fields_1x0.zip
Download LA_GNIS_Placename_All_Pts_Text_Fields_1x0.csv
=4= Web Pages
These files are large so patience is required to load them. Give them a minute if you can.
-4.1- The a smaller database of 42,361 places as differentiated by 17 basic fields is available for review each in the form of in a web page format.
-4.2- The larger database with 42,361 places as differentiated by 250 fields is listed below in alphabetical order on database pages. Each database page has 2,000 Louisiana Places listed in rows. Each row has over 250 columns with information about a particular Louisiana Place.
To locate a particular record, find the alphabetical range within which the geographic place is found and then click on the hyperlink name listed in the FROM column.
| WEBPAGE | FROM | TO |
| 1 | 10th | Bayou Bouillon |
| 2 | Bayou Bouillon | Big Hill |
| 3 | Big Hill | Calhoun School |
| 4 | Calhoun School | Clear Branch |
| 5 | Clear Branch | Demourelles Island |
| 6 | Demourelles Island | Fanz Mobile Home Park |
| 7 | Fanz Mobile Home Park | Goat Bayou |
| 8 | Goat Bayou | HillSide |
| 9 | HillSide | Larto Lake |
| 10 | Larto Lake | Lozes |
| 11 | Lozes | Moreau Beaux Bayou |
| 12 | Moreau Beaux Bayou | Morco Area Volunteer Fire Dept |
| 13 | Norco Area Volunteer Fire Dept | Parish Governing Authority Dist 5 |
| 14 | Parish Governing Authority Dist 5 | Prairie Branch |
| 15 | Prairie Branch | St. Chistopher |
| 16 | St. Chistopher | Second New Zion Baptist Church |
| 17 | Second New Zion Baptist Church | Stumpy Lake |
| 18 | Stumpy Lake | Union Church |
| 19 | Union Church | West End Park |
| 20 | West End Park | Zylks |