Welcome to BATON ROUGE

Baton Rouge is the capital of the state of Louisiana, USA. It provides for as the parish seat for the East Baton Rouge Parish.

The city is located on the south-east portion of the state along the Mississippi River. It is situated on the first series of bluffs, north of the river’s delta plains.

Baton Rouge has a subtropical climate, void of any temperature extremes. The annual average temperature of the city is 19.7°C. The mean temperature in January is 10.67°C while that in July is 29.9°C. Receiving 89,400 mm of average rainfall annually, it is the fifth wettest city in the United States.

The population of Baton Rouge is approximately 224,100, though Hurricane Katrina in 2005 has done considerable damage to property and life. The city is one of the major industrial, petrochemical and port centres of the southern US.

Attractions

Baton Rouge is the middle ground of South Louisiana cultures, having a mix of Cajun and Creole Catholics and Baptists of the Florida Parishes and South Mississippi. Baton Rouge is a college city with college students from Baton Rouge Community College, Louisiana State University, Our Lady of the Lake College, and Southern University who make up approximately 20% of the city population. In addition, there's a sizable international population of about 11,300, the largest of which are people of Hispanic or Vietnamese descent. Due to this, Baton Rouge has come to have its own unique culture as well as be a representation of many different heritages.

Baton Rouge has an expanding visual arts scene, which is centered downtown. This increasing collection of venues is anchored by the Shaw Center for the Arts. Opened in 2005, this award winning facility houses the Brunner Gallery, LSU Museum of Art, the Manship Theatre, a contemporary art gallery, traveling exhibits, and several eateries. Another prominent facility is the Louisiana Art and Science Museum. Also known as LASM, it contains Irene W. Pennington Planetarium, traveling art exhibits, space displays, and an ancient Egyptian section. Several smaller art galleries, including the Baton Rouge Gallery, offering a range of local art are scattered throughout the city.

There is also an emerging performance arts scene. The Baton Rouge Little Theater, Baton Rouge River Center, and Manship Theatre mostly host traveling shows, including broadways, musical artists, and plays. Opera Louisiane is Baton Rouge's newest and only professional opera company. Other venues include Reilly Theater which is home to Swine Palace, a non-profit professional theater company associated with the Louisiana State University Department of Theatre.

Many events take place throughout the year, the biggest of which is Mardi Gras. Every year in either February or March(whenever Mardi Gras falls that year) Baton Rouge hosts many Mardi Gras parades, the largest one being held in historic Spanish Town. Other festivals include FestforAll, Louisiana Earth Day, Mardi Gras season, Pennington Balloon Festival, the St. Patrick's Day Parade, and Red Stick International Animation Festival.

Red Stick International Animation Festival

The Red Stick International Animation Festival is an annual event is hosted by the Lab for Creative Arts & Technologies (LCAT), a research group within the Louisiana State University's Center for Computation and Technology. The first festival took place from April 21 until April 23, 2005, and has occurred annually since in the Downtown Arts District in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The 2005 festival drew over 1200 attendees. In 2006, just over 2000 people attended, and in 2007, over 4000 people attended festival events.

Baton Rouge River Center

The Baton Rouge River Center (when built in the late 1970s, it was called the Riverside Centroplex) is a municipally owned multi-purpose 200,000 square feet (20,000 m²) entertainment facility located on the Mississippi River in downtown Baton Rouge, the capital city of Louisiana.

It is maintained by a private management company, SMG, which presents more than five hundred events a year, including concerts, conventions, sporting events, trade shows and theater productions.

Tourism and Recreation

There are many architectural points of interest in Baton Rouge, ranging from antebellum to modern. The neo-gothic Old Louisiana State Capitol was originally built in the 1890s as the first state house in Baton Rouge and was lattar replaced by the 450 feet (137 m) tall, art-deco New Louisiana State Capitol which finished was the tallest building in the South. Several plantation homes in the area such as Magnolia Mound Plantation House, Myrtles Plantation, and Nottoway Plantation showcase architecture during the antebellum era. The Louisiana State University has over 250 buildings done in the style of Italian Renaissance, one of the nation's largest college stadiums, and is endowed with many live oaks. Several up and coming examples of modern and contemporary buildings are located downtown and include the Louisiana State Museum. A number of structures, including the Baton Rouge River Center, Louisiana State Library, LSU Student Union, Louisiana Naval Museum, Bluebonnet Swamp Interpretive Center, Louisiana Arts and Sciences Center, Louisiana State Archives, and the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, were designed by the Baton Rouge architect John Desmond. Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad Company Depot, currently houses Louisiana Arts and Science Museum.

Museums around town offer a variety of genres. The Louisiana State Museum and the Old Louisiana State Capitol Museum display information on state history and have any interactive exhibits. The Shaw Center for the Arts showcase art exhibits along with Louisiana Art and Science Museum. LASM also includes science exhibits and a planetarium. Other museums include LSU Museum of Natural Science and USS Kidd.

Baton Rouge has an extensive park collection run through BREC. The largest park is City Park near LSU and is current undergoing a complete remodeling. The Baton Rouge Zoo is run through BREC and includes 1800+ species.

Other things to include shopping at the Mall at Cortana and the Mall of Louisiana (Louisiana's two largest malls), a trip to the local amusement parks of Dixie Landin'/ Blue Bayou, or dining at any number of the revered Louisiana cuisine restaurants.