Shreveport is the third-largest city in the state of Louisiana and the 113th-largest city in the United States. It is the seat of Caddo Parish and extends along the Red River (most notably at Wright Island, the Charles and Marie Hamel Memorial Park, and Bagley Island) into neighboring Bossier Parish. Bossier City is separated from Shreveport by the Red River. The population of Shreveport was 199,311 in 2010, and the Shreveport-Bossier City Metropolitan Area population exceeds 441,000. The Shreveport-Bossier City Metropolitan Statistical Area ranks 111th in the United States, according to the United States Census Bureau.Shreveport was founded in 1836 by the Shreve Town Company, a corporation established to develop a town at the juncture of the newly navigable Red River and the Texas Trail, an overland route into the newly independent Republic of Texas and, prior to that time, into Mexico.Shreveport is the commercial and cultural center of the Ark-La-Tex region, where Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas meet.
