Map of Avery Island, Louisiana by USGS, 1994 – Delcambre, Lake Peigneur & Intracoastal Waterway

Published with a 1998 imprint from 1994 mapping, the US Geological Survey’s “Delcambre” quadrangle presents a finely observed portrait of coastal Louisiana at 1:24,000 scale. Centered on the low, watery country around Delcambre and Avery Island, it captures a landscape where roads, rail lines, bayous, levees, agricultural parcels, and marshes interlace with extraordinary delicacy. The USGS topographic style lends the map both scientific authority and visual refinement: contour lines trace the faintest rises in an otherwise flat terrain, while varied blue tones distinguish lakes, channels, wetlands, and drainage features. It is a map of subtle elevations and abundant water, revealing how settlement in this region has long depended on reading the smallest changes in land and marsh.

Avery Island is the map’s most celebrated landmark, a place whose modest elevation belies its remarkable geological and cultural importance. Rising from the surrounding wetlands, the island is one of Louisiana’s famous salt domes, a subterranean formation that shaped local industry, ecology, and settlement. It is also known worldwide as the home of Tabasco sauce, produced there by the McIlhenny family since the nineteenth century. On the map, Avery Island appears not as a tourist emblem but as a real topographic feature: an island of firmer ground, roads, wooded areas, and human use set amid bayous and lowlands. Its presence gives the quadrangle an unusually rich combination of geology, commerce, and Louisiana identity.

To the south and east, Delcambre anchors the map with the quiet importance of a working Gulf Coast town. Historically tied to fishing, shrimping, and aquaculture, Delcambre occupies a practical position amid waterways, roads, and rural routes that connect inland farms with coastal economies. The map shows the town within a wider network of movement: Louisiana highways, local roads, rail corridors, and the Intracoastal Waterway all speak to the region’s dependence on transport across difficult wetland terrain. Rather than a landscape divided neatly into town and countryside, this quadrangle shows a continuum of settlement, cultivation, water management, and marsh. It is a vivid record of how communities adapted to Louisiana’s fluid geography.

The surrounding waters give the map much of its character. Lake Peigneur, Lake Fausse Pointe, Bayou Plaquemine Brule, Bayou des Cannes, and the Intracoastal Waterway appear as part of a broad hydrological system in which natural and engineered channels shape the land. The USGS’s use of blue shading is especially expressive here, distinguishing open water, wetland, and drainage with a clarity that makes the map both beautiful and practical. The terrain is largely flat, yet never featureless: slight rises, canal banks, marsh edges, and agricultural boundaries create a complex pattern of human and natural lines. This is topography measured in subtleties, where a few feet of elevation can determine use, access, and survival.

As a historical document, the “Delcambre” quadrangle preserves a late twentieth-century view of a region undergoing continuous negotiation between development and conservation. Since the map’s creation, coastal Louisiana has faced changing land use, wetland loss, storm impacts, environmental restoration efforts, and evolving approaches to water management. The map therefore offers more than geographic information; it records a moment in the life of a vulnerable and culturally distinctive landscape. Its precise contours, waterways, rural routes, and marsh symbols help illuminate the practical realities behind broader histories of Gulf Coast industry, ecology, and settlement. Elegant in its restraint and rich in detail, it is a compelling portrait of Louisiana’s low country.

Cities, towns and places on this map

• Avery Island
• Delcambre
• Lake Peigneur
• Lake Fausse Pointe
• Louisiana highway routes, railways and roads
• Intracoastal Waterway
• Bayou Plaquemine Brule
• Bayou des Cannes
• Rural routes and agricultural areas
• Water bodies, wetlands and nearby marshlands

Historical context & cartographic details

• Produced by the US Geological Survey (USGS).
• Historical 1:24,000 topographical map of Avery Island, Louisiana and the surrounding area.
• Dated 1994 with a 1998 imprint.
• The USGS is known for geological and topographical mapping used in navigation, land use planning and environmental management.
• Features detailed contour lines showing subtle elevation changes across the largely flat landscape.
• Uses blue shading to distinguish water features and wetland areas.
• Shows the region’s marshy terrain, ecological character and slight local elevation variations.
• Reflects changing land use and environmental management concerns, including urban development and ecological conservation efforts.

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