Central Time (CST/CDT) · New Orleans · UTC−6 / UTC−5
New Orleans is the birthplace of jazz and home to Mardi Gras, the largest annual celebration in North America. Fat Tuesday parades roll through the French Quarter starting as early as 8:00 AM CT and continue well past midnight. The city's live music scene on Frenchmen Street runs nightly from 9:00 PM to 3:00 AM CT.
Louisiana is the only U.S. state whose legal system is based on the Napoleonic Code rather than English common law — a legacy of its French and Spanish colonial heritage. Cajun country in the Acadiana region around Lafayette preserves a unique French-speaking culture with its own cuisine, music (zydeco), and traditions found nowhere else in America.
The state's offshore oil and gas industry in the Gulf of Mexico is a pillar of the U.S. energy sector. Port Fourchon, south of Lafourche Parish, services over 90% of deepwater rigs in the Gulf. Crew changes and supply runs operate on Central Time, with helicopter flights departing at dawn — around 5:30 AM CT. Louisiana also hosts the Port of South Louisiana, the largest tonnage port in the Western Hemisphere.