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| Red River Parish, Louisiana | |
| Map | |
 Location in the state of Louisiana |
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 Louisiana's location in the U.S. |
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| Statistics | |
| Founded | 1871 |
|---|---|
| Seat | Coushatta |
| Largest City | Coushatta |
| Area - Total - Land - Water |
402 sq mi (1,041 km²) 389 sq mi (1,008 km²) 13 sq mi (39 km²), 3.18% |
| Population - (2010) - Density |
9,091 25/sq mi (10/km²) |
| Time zone | Central: UTC-6/-5 |
| Named for: Red River | |
Red River Parish (French: Paroisse de la Rivière-Rouge) is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana. As of the 2010 census, the population was 9,091, making it the fourth-least populous parish in Louisiana. Its seat is Coushatta. It was one of the newer parishes created in 1871 by the state legislature under Reconstruction. The plantation economy was based on cotton cultivation, highly dependent on enslaved African labor before the American Civil War.
In 1880, the parish had a population with more than twice as many blacks as whites. They were essentially disenfranchised in 1898 under a new state constitution after the white Democrats regained power in the state in the late 1870s through paramilitary intimidation at the polls. Most of the former slaves worked as sharecroppers and laborers, cultivating cotton. Because of the mechanization of agriculture, many blacks left the parish during the mid-20th century Great Migration to seek better job opportunities elsewhere. By 2000, the parish population was 9,622, with a white majority, but Coushatta itself was still two thirds black.
| City | Type | Regions |
|---|---|---|
| Coushatta | Rural | South |
| Martin | Rural | Central |
| Hall Summit | Rural | North |
| Edgefield | Rural | South |
Map of Red River Parish, Louisiana With Municipal Labels
