New Orleans Metropolitan Area

New Orleans Metropolitan Area

New Orleans–Metairie–Kenner, or the Greater New Orleans Region (as it is often called by the Louisiana Tourism Commission) is a metropolitan area designated by the United States Census encompassing seven parishes (the Louisiana equivalent of other states' counties) in the state of Louisiana, centering on the city of New Orleans. As of the July 1, 2008 estimate, the metropolitan statistical area (MSA) had a population of 1.17 million; the combined statistical area (CSA), which adds Washington Parish, had a population of 1.18 million; and the ten-parish area (including Tangipahoa and St. James Parishes) used by GNO, Inc. (the regional chamber of commerce) had a population of 1.32 million. The metropolitan area was hit by Hurricane Katrina – once a Category 5 but a Category 3 storm at landfall – in August 2005. Within the city of New Orleans proper, multiple breaches and structural failures occurred in the system of levees and floodwalls designed under federal government auspices. The resulting decline in the city's population negatively impacted population numbers for the entire metro area, for which a population of 1.3 million was recorded in the 2000 Census. Most of the decline in population to 1.17 million is accounted for by the decline in population experienced in the city of New Orleans proper (coterminous with Orleans Parish); the Census Bureau estimates that the city's population dropped from 453,728 prior to the storm (July 1, 2005) to 354,850 at the most recent estimate for 2009.