River Ridge is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, United States.

[2] The land that is now River Ridge was developed by French colonists and their descendants in the late 18th and early 19th centuries for large sugar plantations; these lined the Mississippi River in traditional French long-lot fashion.

The plantations had relatively narrow waterfronts, in order to provide water access, and extended deeply back from the river.

These plantations were developed by French colonists and their descendants; they depended on the labor of African slaves.

The crude river levee at the Sauve Providence plantation failed under pressure of high water on the Mississippi.

This crevasse occurred where a former meander of the Mississippi River once branched to form the Metairie and Gentilly Ridges.

For many years the area remained rural farmland, until the post-World War II suburbanization era.

Bill, which enabled veterans to buy houses, large-scale suburban development began in the early 1950s.

(To this day Little Farms Avenue remains a major River Ridge thoroughfare.)

Its boundaries include Harahan to the east, Kenner to the northwest, Metairie to the north, and the Mississippi River to the southwest.