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Louisiana ((フランス語:La Louisiane;'' by 1879, ''La Louisiane française)) or French Louisiana〔 was an administrative district of New France. Under French control 1682 to 1762 and 1802 (nominally) to 1803, the area was named in honor of King Louis XIV, by French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle. It originally covered an expansive territory that included most of the drainage basin of the Mississippi River, and stretched from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico and from the Appalachian Mountains to the Rocky Mountains. Louisiana was divided into two regions, known as Upper Louisiana (French: ''Haute-Louisiane''), which began north of the Arkansas River, and Lower Louisiana (French: ''Basse-Louisiane''). The U.S. state of Louisiana is named for the historical region, although it occupies only a small portion of the vast lands claimed by the French.〔(La Louisiane française 1682-1803 ), 2002. Although named, ''"La Louisiane"'', that name became the French term for the U.S. state of Louisiana so, by 1879, the colonial region was called ''La Louisiane française''.〕 Although French exploration of the area began during the reign of Louis XIV, French Louisiana was not greatly 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 eastern part of the territory in 1763 to the victorious British, and the western part to Spain as compensation for that country's loss of Florida. France regained sovereignty of the western territory in the secret Treaty of San Ildefonso of 1800. But strained by obligations in Europe, Napoleon Bonaparte decided to sell the territory to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, ending France's presence in Louisiana. The United States ceded part of the Louisiana Purchase to the United Kingdom in the Treaty of 1818. This section lies above the 49th parallel north in a portion of present-day Alberta and Saskatchewan. ==Boundaries, settlement and geography== In the 18th century, Louisiana included most of the Mississippi River Valley, from what is now the Midwestern United States south to the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Within this vast territory, only two areas saw substantial French settlement: Upper Louisiana ((フランス語:Haute-Louisiane)), also known as the Illinois Country ((フランス語:Pays des Illinois)), which consisted of settlements in what are now the states of Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana; and Lower Louisiana, which comprised parts of the modern states of Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Alabama. Both areas were dominated numerically by Native American tribal populations. "At times, fewer than two hundred () soldiers were assigned to all of the colony, on both sides of the Mississippi. In the mid-1720s, Louisiana had some 2,500 French, plus 1,500 slaves. In contrast, Louisiana Indians numbered well over 35,000."〔(Kathleen DuVall, "Interconnectedness and Diversity in 'French Louisiana'", in ''Powhatan's Mantle: Indians in the Colonial Southeast'' ), ed. Gregory A. Waselkov, Peter H. Wood, and M. Thomas Hatley, Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2nd edition, 2006, accessed 2015-03-09〕 Generally speaking, the French colony of Louisiana bordered the Great Lakes, particularly Lake Michigan and Lake Erie towards the north; this region was the "Upper Country" of the French province of Canada. To the east was territory disputed with the British colonies on the Atlantic seaboard; the French claim extended to the Appalachian Mountains. The Rocky Mountains marked the western extent of the French claim, while Louisiana's southern border was the Gulf of Mexico. The general flatness of the land aided movement through the territory; its average elevation is less than . The topography becomes more mountainous towards the west, with the notable exception of the Ozark Mountains, which are located in the mid-south. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Louisiana (New France)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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