USA

New Orleans has long seduced with its Caribbean colour, sultry Southern heat, sweet-tasting cocktails and voodoo potions. The unofficial state motto, laissez les bons temps rouler (let the good times roll), says it all. Then in August 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck, toppling levees, flooding much of the city and drastically changing everything.

Before the 20th century

Nomadic Paleo-Indians probably spent time in the New Orleans area over 10000 years ago. By the time the French founded the city in 1718, seven small tribes known as the Muskogeans inhabited the Florida Parishes north of Lake Pontchartrain and, occasionally, the banks of the Mississippi River. Other tribes south of New Orleans inhabited the bayous in Barataria and the lower course of the Mississippi River.

In 1699, brothers Pierre Le Moyne and Jean-Baptist Le Moyne de Bienville became the first Europeans to ply the Mississippi upriver from the Gulf of Mexico. Guided by a Native American, they sailed north, pausing to note the narrow portage to Lake Pontchartrain. Less than 20 years later, Bienville returned to lay out Nouvelle Orleans on that same spot.

Early settlers arrived mostly from France, Canada and Germany, while the French imported thousands of African slaves. Despite the influx, however, colonial mercantilism proved an economic failure in New Orleans and the harsh realities of life there kept further civilian immigration at a minimum. The colonists developed an exchange economy based on smuggling and local trade, while their city earned a reputation for its illegal enterprise and swarthy character.

In 1762, the French ceded the Louisiana territory to the Spanish in exchange for help in France's war against England. During this time, French refugees from Nova Scotia (Acadia) began arriving, following the British seizure of French Canada. (The British deported thousands of Acadians for refusing to pledge allegiance to England.) Unfortunately for the Acadians - or Cajuns, as they are now called - no one had told them they were to become Spanish subjects. Creole society turned their noses up at them and banished the Acadians to the bayous west of the city, where they continued their livelihood of raising livestock.

France regained possession of New Orleans in 1800 and took up an offer to buy it from Thomas Jefferson, who coveted the river capital to proceed on a path of western expansionism. Preferring it fall into American rather than British hands, Napoleon sold the entire Louisiana Territory at a price of 15000000. On 20 December 1803, the French tricolour on the Place d'Armes was quietly replaced by the American flag.

In town, the response to American control was less than welcoming. Protestant American culture was seen as domineering and vulgar. In 1808, the territorial legislature adopted elements of Spanish and French laws - especially the Napoleonic Code - elements of which persist in Louisiana to the present.

By 1840 it was the nation's fourth city to exceed 100000 inhabitants. Americans gained control of the municipal government in 1852 and by 1850, New Orleans had become the South's largest slave-trading centre. Though Louisiana was the sixth state to secede in 1860, New Orleans actually voted three-to-one to preserve the Union and became the first Confederate city to be captured.

After the fall of New Orleans, about 24000 Louisiana blacks served in the Union forces and played a key role in the Reconstruction. After occupying troops left in 1877, many civil rights gains were lost as Jim Crow segregation became commonplace, with skin colour serving as the ultimate arbiter for people who chose not to trace their lineage. Governor Huey Long reportedly summed up the distinction by noting that all the 'pure whites' in Louisiana could be fed 'with a nickel's worth of red beans and a dime's worth of rice'.

By the early 20th century, New Orleans was ripe for the musical revolution that gave birth to jazz. Blacks had long congregated at Congo Square every Sunday to dance and sing to an African drumbeat - the only place in the South where this was permitted. Eventually, the indigenous musical genre called jazz took shape, with many early jazz musicians performing in the red-light district.

Modern history

As the 20th century dawned, New Orleans struggled to get itself back on track after the turmoil of Reconstruction. It snapped out of the Great Depression as WWII industries created jobs, and its continued prosperity in the 1950s led to suburban growth around the city. Desegregation laws finally brought an end to Jim Crow, but traditions shaped by racism were not so easily reversed. As poor blacks moved into the city, many middle-class whites moved out. New Orleans' population quickly became predominantly black. The city's tax base declined, and many neighbourhoods fell into neglect. However, the French Quarter, which had become a dowdy working-class enclave after the Civil War, was treated to restoration efforts, and it emerged primed for mass tourism, which was becoming one of the city's most lucrative industries. Even as the oil and chemical industries boomed in Louisiana, spurred on by low taxes and lenient environmental restrictions, New Orleans fastened its eyes on the tourist dollar. In the mid-1970s the Louisiana Superdome opened. The home of the city's NFL team, the Saints, it has also hosted Super Bowls and presidential conventions and sparked a major revenue-earner for New Orleans: trade shows. All around the Superdome, new skyscrapers rose in the Central Business District, but by the end of the 1980s, the local oil boom went bust.

Recent history

In recent years, the steady growth of tourism - despite reports of the city's high crime rate - made up an increasing share of the employment opportunities in New Orleans. Like most US cities at the end of the millennium, New Orleans benefited from trends toward urban revival, and crime had dropped. Still, New Orleans remained largely a poor city with a small tax base to support public schools and social programs. Gentrification mostly highlighted a growing divide between the haves and have-nots. And, still, the divide was defined primarily by race. Everything changed, however, on those fateful days in August 2005 when Katrina roared ashore.

At that time, a man-made disaster occurred when Katrina, a relatively weak Category 3 hurricane, overwhelmed New Orleans' federal flood protection system in over 50 places. Some 80% of the city was flooded, over 1800 people lost their lives, and the entire city was evacuated. Today, the population level stands at only two-thirds of pre-Katrina levels, with an altered demographic face that has the potential to impact the city's essential character in the years ahead. Although much of the city has rebuilt and tourists are back with a bead-throwing vengeance, the city has irrevocably changed, in ways good and bad.

Top Accommodation

Top Restaurants

The Gulf of Mexico provides New Orleans with plenty of moisture - the city receives about 150cm (60in) of rainfall annually and no season is immune from it. In March, April and May the weather is quite variable, with plenty of rain; but spring has sunny, mild days that are perfect for the festivals. Summer is hot, sticky and steamy, often with thundershowers. September and October days are the most likely to offer clear, temperate weather. Winter temperatures average a comfortable 12°C (54°F), yet occasional drops in temperature, combined with the damp atmosphere, can chill you to the bone. Snow is rare but December's short days, fog and rain conspire to allow only a few hours of daily sunshine.

Average weather

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• Sunshine

Transport

Getting around

There's an information booth at the airport's A&B concourse; most visitors take the Airport Shuttle to and from the airport. The Regional Transit Authority runs the local bus service. The RTA also operates three streetcar lines.

Try to avoid bringing a car to downtown New Orleans as it can be a costly and frustrating proposition, dealing with the narrow one-way streets, congestion and parking. Don't forget, you can always rent a bicycle too!

Getting there and away

Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, 18km (11mi) west of the city, handles mostly domestic flights. Greyhound buses run from the Union Passenger Terminal, with regular services to other southern cities. Amtrak trains also operate from the Union Passenger Terminal.

Health & Legal Requirements

Dangers and annoyances

New Orleans has a high violent-crime rate, and neighborhoods go from good to ghetto very quickly. Be careful walking too far north of Faubourg Marigny and the Bywater (St Claude Ave is a good place to stop), south of Magazine St (things get dodgier past Laurel St) and too far west (Rampart St) of the French Quarter. Stick to places that are well peopled, particularly at night, and spring for a cab to avoid dark walks. In the Quarter, street hustlers frequently approach tourists - just walk away. With all that said, don't be paranoid. Crime here, as in most of America, tends to be between people who already know each other.