Louisiana (New France)

Louisiana or French Louisiana was a district of New France. In 1682 the French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle erected a cross near the mouth of the Mississippi River and claimed the whole of the drainage basin of the Mississippi River in the name of King Louis XIV, naming it "Louisiana". This land area stretched from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico and from the Appalachian Mountains to the Rocky Mountains. The area was under French control from 1682 to 1762 and in part from 1801 (nominally) to 1803.

Louisiana included two regions, now known as Upper Louisiana (la Haute-Louisiane), which began north of the Arkansas River, and Lower Louisiana (la Basse-Louisiane). The U.S. state of Louisiana is named for the historical region, although it is only a small part of the vast lands claimed by France.

French exploration of the area began during the reign of Louis XIV, but the vast French Louisiana was not widely developed, due to a lack of human and financial resources. As a result of its defeat in the Seven Years' War, France was forced to cede the east part of the territory in 1763 to the victorious British, and the west part to Spain as compensation for Spain losing Florida. In the 1770s, France decided to aid revolution in Britain's North American colonies, east of the Mississippi, that became the United States. France regained sovereignty from Spain of the western territory in the secret Third Treaty of San Ildefonso of 1800. Napoleon Bonaparte made plans to further develop France's control but strained by operations in the Caribbean and Europe, he sold the territory to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, ending France's presence. Remnants of France's long tenure are still found, especially in New Orleans and along the Mississippi and its tributaries.

The United States ceded the part north of the 49th parallel to the United Kingdom in the Treaty of 1818. It is part of present-day Alberta and Saskatchewan.