Baton Rouge

Baton Rouge is the capital city of the U.S. state of Louisiana. On the eastern bank of the Mississippi River, it is the parish seat of East Baton Rouge Parish, the most-populous parish in Louisiana. Since 2020, the city of Baton Rouge has been the 99th-most-populous city in the United States, and second-largest city in Louisiana after New Orleans. It is also the 18th-most-populous state capital. At the U.S. Census Bureau's 2020 tabulation, Baton Rouge had a population of 227,470; the consolidated population of Baton Rouge was 456,781 in 2020 The city of Baton Rouge is the center of the Greater Baton Rouge area, the second-largest metropolitan area in Louisiana, with a population of 870,569 as of 2020, up from 802,484 in 2010.
The Baton Rouge area owes its historical importance to its strategic site upon the Istrouma Bluff, the first natural bluff upriver from the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. This allowed development of a business quarter safe from seasonal flooding. In addition, the city built a levee system stretching from the bluff southward to protect the riverfront and low-lying agricultural areas.