Louisiana cities and towns

This directory lists every place the US Census Bureau tabulates in Louisiana, ranked from the largest to the smallest by population. Incorporated cities, towns and villages appear alongside census-designated places (CDPs) — unincorporated communities that have no local government of their own but are counted separately because they have a recognised name and settled population. The suffix in each name ("city", "town", "village", "CDP") is the Census legal/statistical description, which is why you will see entries such as "New Orleans city".

The largest place in Louisiana is New Orleans city with 376,035 residents, and the 489 places on this page hold 2,995,707 people between them. Median household income across the listed places runs from $2,499 to $162,958, and median home values range from $24,300 to $556,800 — a spread that shows how much local housing markets diverge inside a single state.

Every figure comes from the American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year five-year estimates, which average survey responses over sixty months. That averaging is what makes small towns measurable at all, but it also means the numbers describe the period as a whole rather than today. Blank cells are estimates the Census suppressed because the local sample was too small to publish reliably. Select any place to open its full profile with affordability ratios, poverty and homeownership rates, and links to nearby communities of similar size.

Louisiana splits between a handful of population centres — 45% of its 2,995,707 counted residents live in the ten largest places — and a long tail of smaller communities. 8 places pass 50,000 residents, while 216 sit below a thousand. The median row holds just 1,315 residents. At that scale margins of error widen sharply, and a single large household or seasonal population can shift a median.

Buying is a little easier here than nationally: Louisiana's median place shows $144,400 in home value on $50,568 of income, a ratio of 2.9 against 3.9 across the country. Median gross rent runs $846 including utilities, or about 20% of median household income annually.

Incomes fan out sharply inside Louisiana. Strip the outliers and the top-decile place still earns 3.35× the bottom-decile one ($88,906 against $26,518); include them and Lewisburg CDP tops the list at $162,958 and Belmont CDP anchors the bottom at $2,499. A single "Louisiana average" is averaging across two different economies.

About one row in 8 is incomplete — 62 of 489 places have a suppressed estimate, almost all of them at the small end. Five-year estimates average responses over sixty months, so what is published is a stable baseline rather than a reading of this month's market.

How many places does Louisiana have? 489 appear in the current federal tabulation, counting incorporated cities, towns and villages together with census-designated places — unincorporated communities with no local government of their own. 44% of them have fewer than a thousand residents, so the list is far longer than the number of towns you would recognise by name.

Which Louisiana row should I compare mine against? Pick places within roughly the same population band. In a state this spread out, size drives the housing and income figures more than region does.

How current is this? Every figure comes from the American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year release published by the US Census Bureau, ACS 2019-2023 5-year estimates. It reflects the full survey window rather than a single date, and it is the most recent vintage available for places this small.