Lafayette

Lafayette is a city in southern Louisiana, on the Vermilion River at the center of Acadiana, the French-speaking Cajun region of the state. Cajun and zydeco music, played with accordions and fiddles, fill its dance halls and festivals.

Acadians from Nova Scotia settled the prairies of southern Louisiana in the second half of the 18th century. Jean Mouton, a planter, gave land for a church, and the town of Vermilionville was laid out around it in 1821. It was renamed in 1884 after the Marquis de Lafayette, the French general of the American Revolution. A college that opened at the turn of the 20th century grew into the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, whose teams are called the Ragin' Cajuns.

Stuller, based in Lafayette, makes fine jewelry, mountings and tools for jewelers across the United States. Boudin, a sausage of pork and rice, is made in meat markets of the region and sold warm at gas stations along the highways. Crawfish from the rice fields and swamps of Acadiana are boiled with spices in spring.

Vermilionville, a living history village on the bayou, shows the houses and crafts of the Acadian, Creole and Native American peoples of the region. The Cathedral of Saint John the Evangelist, built of red brick in a Dutch Romanesque style, stands beside the Cathedral Oak, a live oak several centuries old. Festival International de Louisiane brings music from French-speaking countries to the streets of downtown each April. The Acadiana Center for the Arts holds a theater with galleries of local art in the center.