[6] However, KATC television in Lafayette independently coined "Acadiana" in the early 1960s, giving it a new, broader meaning, and popularized it throughout southern Louisiana.

[8] Historically part of French Louisiana, present-day Acadiana was inhabited by Attakapa Native Americans at the time of European encounter.

The eastern Acadiana region was somewhat affected by Hurricane Katrina on August 29, 2005, although the damage was limited compared to the severe flooding farther east in Greater New Orleans.

Governor Kathleen Blanco made a public request that those returning not try to seek lodging in the capital due to this crisis of overpopulation.

The largest of these shelters, run by the Red Cross, was the Lafayette sports arena (the Cajundome), holding a reported 9,800 persons.

[19][20] Although Lafayette, Saint Martinville and Crowley had little damage (comparatively) and some residents still had power, the rest of the region was severely affected.

This was attributed to the evacuation and mitigation plans that had been drilled by state and local official, and to a strong presence of representatives from both the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

[26] Acadiana consists mainly of low gentle hills in the north section and dry land prairies, with marshes and bayous in the south closer to the Gulf Coast area.

Acadiana, as defined by the Louisiana legislature, refers to the area that stretches from just west of New Orleans to the Texas border along the Gulf of Mexico coast, and about 100 miles (160 km) inland to Marksville.

This includes the 22 parishes of Acadia, Ascension, Assumption, Avoyelles, Calcasieu, Cameron, Evangeline, Iberia, Iberville, Jefferson Davis, Lafayette, Lafourche, Pointe Coupee, St. Charles, St. James, St. John The Baptist, St. Landry, St. Martin, St. Mary, Terrebonne, Vermilion, and West Baton Rouge.

St. James and Ascension parishes were originally known as the Comté d'Acadie (Acadia County) because of the initial settlement of 18th-century exiled Acadians.

Other cities and towns within Acadiana are Abbeville, Berwick, Breaux Bridge, Broussard, Bunkie, Carencro, Church Point, Crowley, Delcambre, Donaldsonville, Erath, Eunice, Franklin, Gonzales, Gueydan, Jeanerette, Jennings, Kaplan, Lutcher, Mamou, Marksville, Maurice, Morgan City, New Iberia, New Roads, Opelousas, Patterson, Plaquemine, Port Allen, Rayne, Scott, Simmesport, St. Amant, St. Gabriel, St. Martinville, Sulphur, Sunset, Ville Platte, and Youngsville.

[2] They prevail among the region's visible cultures, but not everyone who lives in Acadiana is ethnically Acadian or speaks Louisiana French.

[citation needed] Acadiana is home to several Native American tribes, including the Chitimacha, Houma, Tunica-Biloxi, Attakapas, and Coushatta.

Acadiana also is home to other ethnic groups, including Anglo-Americans, who came into the region in increasing numbers beginning notably with the Louisiana Purchase of 1803.

Since the late 20th century, political refugees from Southeast Asia (Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia, among others) have brought their families, cultures, and languages to the area, and have contributed significantly to its fishing industry.

[28] Being a French, and later Spanish colony, Louisiana maintained a three-tiered society that was very similar to other Latin American and Caribbean countries.

As more families settled Louisiana, young Frenchmen or French Creoles coming from wealthy backgrounds courted mixed-race women as their mistresses, known as placées, before they officially married.

The gens de couleur libres developed formal arrangements for placées, which the young women's mothers negotiated.

Today, the multiracial descendants of the French and Spanish colonists, Africans, and other ethnicities are widely known as Louisiana Creoles.

[34] The slaves brought with them their cultural practices, languages, and religious beliefs rooted in spirit and ancestor worship, as well as Roman Catholic Christianity—all of which were key elements of Louisiana Voodoo.

[33] In addition, in the early nineteenth century, many Saint Dominicans also settled in Louisiana, both free people of color and slaves, following the Haitian Revolution on Saint-Domingue, contributing to the Voodoo tradition of the state.

Religiously, Acadiana differs from much of the American South because a majority of its people are Christians of the Roman Catholic tradition in contrast to the surrounding regions (e.g., Central and Northern Louisiana), which are part of the largely Protestant Bible Belt.

The abundance of swamps and marshes previously made Acadiana difficult to access, a major reason for the near isolation of the early Cajun people.

Rail transport through the area is limited by the difficult terrain and the sheer number of bridges required to build over numerous streams and bayous.

Seaports, rivers, lakes, bayous, canals, and spillways dot the landscape, and served as the primary source of shipping and travel through the early 1930s.

Fresh and saltwater lakes, along with almost the entire Louisiana portion of the Intracoastal Waterway, enable the flow of people and materials.