State guide

Louisiana Nature Guide

Louisiana is a state defined by water — the great Mississippi River, the vast Atchafalaya Basin (the largest river swamp in the United States), and a fraying necklace of coastal marshes that form one of the continent's most important wintering grounds for waterfowl. From the loblolly-pine hills and bottomland hardwoods of the north, through the cypress-tupelo swamps and live-oak ridges of the Acadiana prairie, to the salt marsh and barrier islands of the Gulf, the seasons run long, green, and warm. It is a land of bald cypress draped in Spanish moss, of Brown Pelicans recovered from the brink, of native Louisiana irises lighting the bayous, and of the spring trans-Gulf migration crashing ashore at Grand Isle.