River, Lake, Uptown, Downtown: New Orleans Directions

New Orleans directions don't use north, south, east and west. We use the river and the lake instead. Lakeside means toward Lake Pontchartrain. Riverside means toward the Mississippi. Uptown means upriver and downtown means downriver. That's the whole system, and once you learn it, a regular compass starts to feel kind of useless.

It sounds like a quirk. It's really a survival tool. In a city wrapped around a bend in the river, it's the only set of directions that stays true no matter where you're standing.

Why the Compass Doesn't Work Here

The Mississippi doesn't run straight past New Orleans. It loops. The city grew along that curve, which is where the nickname Crescent City comes from, and the streets followed the river. As Frommer's puts it, outside the gridded French Quarter, the streets run at angles because they curve with the river.

So a street that runs "north" from the river in one neighborhood is running northwest in the next one and almost due west a couple of miles further on. If you tried to tell somebody to go "north on Napoleon," they'd look at you funny. Go lakeside on Napoleon. Everybody knows which way that is.

The weirdest example is across the water. Stand at the foot of Canal Street and look across the river and you'll be looking at the West Bank, which is roughly southeast of you. Locals like to say the sun rises over the West Bank. Geographer Richard Campanella has written about why: river people call the west side of the Mississippi the west bank no matter which way the river is bending.

Lakeside and Riverside

These are the easy ones. Lake Pontchartrain is on one side of the city, the Mississippi is on the other, and almost every cross street runs between the two. Lakeside, toward the lake. Riverside, toward the river.

It works at every scale. Magazine Street is on the riverside of the Garden District and St. Charles is on the lakeside. Your friend lives on the lakeside of Claiborne. The good snowball stand is riverside of the neutral ground, by the way, the grassy median in the middle of the street that nobody here calls a median.

Uptown and Downtown

This is where it gets interesting. Uptown and downtown aren't neighborhoods so much as directions, and they come from the river too. Uptown is upriver. Downtown is downriver.

In his 2006 book Geographies of New Orleans, Campanella traced how this happened. Most of the city's 19th-century growth went upriver onto higher ground along the natural levee, so those new faubourgs became the "upper" part of town. The older areas below became "lower." The actual words "uptown" and "downtown" probably came in with Northerners before the Civil War.

The traditional dividing line is Canal Street. In the old days it split the Creole city from the American side. Uptown was upriver of Canal, downtown was downriver. Simple.

Except it isn't anymore. Campanella found that by around 1970, the business district just above Canal had come to be called "downtown," the way it would be in any other American city. When he looked at Times-Picayune headlines with "downtown" in them from 1993 to 2004, most put downtown above Canal Street. So now you've got people who grew up saying the CBD is uptown of Canal and people who call it downtown, and they're both right.

The "Downtown Side" and Other Local Moves

Once you have the four directions, you can stack them. "Lake-uptown corner" is a real thing a person might say about an intersection. "The downtown side of the street" is perfectly normal. So is "go uptown on Tchoupitoulas till you hit the river side of the warehouse."

Then add landmarks. New Orleans directions are full of them. Turn where the old K&B used to be. Go past the church. Hang a left at the house with the giant flag. If you hit the levee, you went too far. The fly, where people watch the sun go down over the river, is "behind the zoo." We wrote about the Fly if you want the full directions.

Esplanade Avenue is a fun test. It has the oak trees and old mansions that look like they belong uptown. Campanella points out that nobody calls it uptown anyway, because it's downriver of Canal. In New Orleans, the river decides.

How a Shirt Became a Compass

We've printed a lot of shirts about this city over twenty years. River. Lake. Uptown. Downtown. is the one that spells it all out.

Patrick pushed for that design, and he was right to. It's just the four words every local uses and every visitor has to learn the hard way, laid out like a compass. Standard directions need not apply.

It lives on now as a keychain and a sticker too. The keychain says it best: you'll never get lost if you know where the water is.

A Few Practice Questions

You're at Jackson Square facing the river. Which way is uptown? To your right.

You're on St. Charles Avenue near Napoleon and someone says the restaurant is "riverside." Which way do you walk? Toward Magazine.

You're standing at Algiers Point looking across at the French Quarter. Which bank are you on? The West Bank, and the Quarter is mostly north of you. Don't think about it too hard.

If you want to go deeper, the atlas Unfathomable City maps the city in ways no tourist map tries. And if you're visiting, our guide on how to not look like a tourist in New Orleans covers more of this. Nothing gives you away faster than asking which way is north.

New Orleans Directions Lakeside Riverside: FAQ

What does lakeside and riverside mean in New Orleans?

Lakeside means toward Lake Pontchartrain and riverside means toward the Mississippi River. Locals use them instead of north and south because the river's curve makes compass directions unreliable.

What is the difference between uptown and downtown in New Orleans?

Uptown means upriver and downtown means downriver. Canal Street is the traditional dividing line, though many people now call the business district just above Canal "downtown."

Why is the West Bank of New Orleans east of the city?

Because the Mississippi bends around New Orleans, the river's west bank sits south and partly east of downtown. Mariners name the banks by the river, not the compass.