Baton Rouge, Louisiana Baton Rouge, Louisiana Baton Rouge ( ; ) is the capital of the U.S. state of Louisiana and its second-largest city. Located on the eastern bank of the Mississippi River, it is the parish seat of East Baton Rouge Parish. As its capital city, Baton Rouge is the political hub of Louisiana. It is the second-largest city in the state, with an estimated population of 227,715 in 2016. The metropolitan area surrounding the city, known as Greater Baton Rouge, is also the second-largest in Louisiana, with a population of 830,480 people as of 2015. The urban area has around 594,309
Feliciana Parish, Louisiana of Haiti, in 1803, Napoleon sold Louisiana and its vast territories west of the Mississippi River to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase. The West Florida section of what is now the state of Louisiana, however, was not included; the Louisiana Purchase was vague as to defining its eastern boundary. Though President Jefferson insisted that this area was American, Spain disagreed and continued their occupation. (Since the 1760s, the eastern boundary of West Florida had been the Apalachicola River, and Pensacola was the capital.) Feliciana colonists, unhappy under the Spanish regime, revolted in 1810 and established the short-lived Republic