A parish is Louisiana's equivalent to a county; eight of them are collectively referred to as the "Florida Parishes:" East and West Feliciana, East Baton Rouge, Livingston, St. Helena, St. Tammany, Tangipahoa, and Washington. They are bounded by the state of Mississippi to the north and east, by the Mississippi River to the west, and by Bayou Manchac and Lake Pontchartrain to the south (see map). In colonial days, they fell within the Spanish Territory of West Florida, and for a few months in 1910, before annexation into the United States, they were the Republic of West Florida, hence their present designation, Florida Parishes.

The Florida Parishes region encapsulates the diversity of the state as a whole. Its residents are Scotch-Irish-English and Afro-American, French and Creole, Italian and Eastern European. Unlike the rest of south Louisiana, however, the Florida Parishes have seen very little creolization; rather, the traditions and ethnicity of its people have remained more discrete. The folk landscape of the parishes today includes plantation homes, piney woods, farmsteads, bayou fishing camps, Creole cottages and Sunbelt subdivisions. Considering the suburban infringement of the metropolitan Baton Rouge and New Orleans areas, the region is remarkably rich in rural traditional culture.