Why does Louisiana have parishes instead of counties?

This blog started as a way to explain the term "Imperial Calcasieu" but became sidetracked due to the anticipated question "Why does Louisiana have parishes instead of counties?"

Since Louisiana is the only state in the nation that refers to our larger, local governments as "parishes" it is probably a good idea to provide a brief answer.

For the answer, one must look to the history of the state of Louisiana. The state was formed from colonies that were officially Roman Catholic and parishes was the common form of description for the areas served by the church. As a result, local government was based on "parishes".

After the Louisiana Purchase (1803), the Territorial Legislative Council divided Orleans Territory which was the the predecessor of Louisiana, into 12 parishes.

The borders were not well defined, but they roughly coincided with the colonial parishes, so used the same names. Later, in 1807, the territorial legislature divided the state into 19 parishes (that's where the blog about Imperial Calcasieu will start).

When the first map of the state was created in 1816, the use of the tern "parish" continued and has remained in use as the official term of our primary civil divisions since.

A list of all of the state's 64 parishes and the resource for these comments can be found on this page on WikiPedia.