In honor of our 20th, we’re reflecting on 20 things that make the 225 area special

1. A river runs through it

Thanks to its strategic waterfront location, the Baton Rouge area can claim the farthest inland deep-water port on the Mississippi. That means cargo from trucks, trains and barges can be loaded on ocean-bound ships here, making the Port of Greater Baton Rouge one of the country’s top ports in total tonnage. All that water also means we get to host the USS Kidd, the only U.S. Navy destroyer preserved in its original World War II configuration, which is poised to return from restoration in spring 2026. And the Baton Rouge Water Campus, featuring one of the world’s largest movable-bed physical river models, is the country’s first major center devoted to coastal restoration and sustainability research. Talk about making a splash.

2. Good spirits

Raise a glass to the award-winning cocktail artisans who call this community home. Local mixologist Alan Walter notched Baton Rouge’s first James Beard nomination earlier this year in the Outstanding Professional in Cocktail Service category (read about where he’s popping up these days on pg. 210). If it’s vino you fancy, Wine Spectator said cheers to Mansurs on the Boulevard in 2025 with its Best of Award of Excellence, while The Gregory, Sullivan’s Steakhouse, Tallulah Crafted Food and Wine Bar, and Bin 77 Bistro and Sidebar all earned the magazine’s Award of Excellence.

3. Blasts from the past

In case you’re a newcomer (read: moved here at any point after birth) or are a bit rusty on your eighth-grade history, this area was important enough to fight about not once but twice, first when Spanish forces captured a British outpost in the first Battle of Baton Rouge during the Revolutionary War and again when Confederate troops attacked Union forces in the Civil War battle of the same name. Port Hudson State Historic Site in East Feliciana Parish, which saw its own siege in 1863, hosts reenactments each spring.

4. The flavorful food scene

“The best beignets in New Orleans are in Baton Rouge,” read a 2019 headline in Food & Wine magazine, and we couldn’t agree more—those fluffy fingers at Coffee Call are iconic. But the national media accolades don’t stop there: the home-cooking hotspot Zeeland Street was named one of the 50 best restaurants in America by The New York Times in 2024, and USA Today called Baton Rouge as a whole an “underrated food city” in 2017. Pass the powdered sugar!

5. A couple of capitols

Not only does Baton Rouge boast the nation’s tallest state capitol building at 450 feet, the mid-19th-century Gothic-style Old State Capitol is an equally compelling tourist attraction. Want to see the bullet holes where Governor Huey P. Long was shot? Go to the “new” Capitol, built in 1931. Prefer to peek in on a ghost? You might find one or two at the Old State Capitol, or at least an immersive theatrical presentation featuring the “ghost” of a girl who wrote a diary describing the structure. And yes, Mark Twain may have called it a “sham of a castle” and the “ugliest thing on the Mississippi,” but hey—all press is good press, right?

6. Campus culture

You can’t distill Baton Rouge’s essence down to merely a college town with so much else going on beyond the hallowed halls, but with LSU, Southern University and Baton Rouge Community College all inside its borders, some 60,000 college students are hitting the books here each year. And that’s not counting the smaller specialized institutions that also offer degree programs in this area. These ever-evolving communities give the Capital Region a unique energy, and the research being done at these schools, including at places like LSU’s Pennington Biomedical Research Center, has ripple effects around the country.

7. Hooray for the home team

From Friday night lights at local high schools to the crowds that descend upon LSU’s Tiger Stadium and Southern’s A.W. Mumford Stadium, it’s obvious that sports are an essential part of the fabric of this region. It starts early, with first-class sports training facilities and elite travel teams helping young athletes get an edge. If spectator’s more your speed, recent additions to the sports scene have included the Zydeco pro hockey team and the Rougarou collegiate summer baseball team.

8. Fresh from the farm

Tucked into the 440 acres of the LSU AgCenter Botanic Gardens is the LSU Rural Life Museum, named one of the top 10 outdoor museums in the world by the British Museum. PBS chose this spot to film three episodes of Antiques Roadshow in 2023, thanks to its picturesque setting, including 30-plus rural Louisiana buildings from the 18th and 19th centuries.

9. Swamp things

In the heart of the city, Bluebonnet Swamp Nature Center is a hotbed of biodiversity, with hundreds of species of birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles lurking quietly within its 103 acres of swampland. Boardwalks and gravel paths let visitors get up close to this natural wonder, and BREC’s educators regularly lead trail tours, bird walks and night hikes.

10. Music makers

Those who danced along to Better than Ezra in college know the band got its start here, and it’s one of many acclaimed musical acts with roots in this region. From blues performers Slim Harpo and Buddy Guy to American Idol stars John Foster and Laine Hardy, these talents have drawn inspiration from their south Louisiana surroundings.

11. That’s ancient history

Go back in time with a trip to the Louisiana Art & Science Museum, home to a 2,300-year-old Egyptian mummy as well as a 65-million-year-old triceratops skull. And the museum’s collection of lunar rocks brought back by Apollo 11 is even older still, dating back to a few billion years ago.

12. Bird by bird

The terrain gets hilly as you head out of Baton Rouge toward West Feliciana Parish, where famed naturalist John James Audubon spent a summer immortalizing the local flora and fauna with watercolors and ink. The 1815-built Oakley House where he stayed is now part of the 100-acre Audubon State Historic Site and is one of several pre-Civil War buildings in the parish that are open to visitors.

13. River Road rambling

With this area hugging both banks of the Mississippi, the winding River Road runs through multiple parishes and makes for an easy afternoon sightseeing route. Spots to check out along the way include the River Road African American Museum in Donaldsonville, Houmas House Estate and Gardens in Darrow and the National Hansen’s Disease Museum in Carville.

14. One-pot wonders

As the “Jambalaya Capital of the world,” Gonzales draws dozens of cooks each year to prepare their best cast-iron concoctions during the city’s Jambalaya Festival. Live music and plenty of tastings round out this event, which is one of many annual festivals that fill bellies and keep toes tapping in this area all year long.

15. Lake life

From Baton Rouge’s signature LSU Lakes now under renovation to the 15-mile oxbow lake known as False River in Pointe Coupee Parish, it’s easy to access fun on the water—a welcome respite on hot south Louisiana summer days. For fishing, the two lakes at BREC’s Blackwater Conservation Area in Central are stocked with largemouth bass and other species.

16. Catch a wave

A gravitational wave, that is, at the LIGO Observatory in Livingston Parish. One of two such sites in the United States, the observatory first detected cosmic gravitational waves in 2015, confirming part of Einstein’s theory of general relativity and leading to the awarding of a Nobel Prize in Physics two years later. The LIGO Science Education Center is open to the public on the first Saturday of each month.

17. Highland heritage

A 1989 state law designated Highland Road as a “historic road and scenic parkway,” noting that it was the first high land along the Mississippi River north of the Gulf of Mexico. When it was a dirt trail, this route was likely walked by Native Americans who also used the adjacent Bayou Fountain. Today, it’s a must-drive for visitors with its overarching live oak branches, gentle curves and stately homes.

18. Run the town

Pounding the pavement is both a serious and a social pastime in the Capital City, where the Louisiana Marathon and other annual races draw thousands of participants to spread out over our streets. Training for such an event leads many to link up with Varsity Sports’ Baton Rouge Run Group or Baton Rouge Run Club. Interested in a less competitive take on the tradition? Join the run-then-fun crowds organized by Happy’s Running Club and the Baton Rouge Sunday Social Running Club. Run hard, live easy indeed!

19. Sugar, sugar

The West Baton Rouge Museum highlights this area’s connection to the cultivation of sugar cane with a 33-foot-tall sugar mill model, historic cabins and barns, as well as rotating exhibits that illuminate local history. The Sugarfest event held each fall adds cane cutting and grinding demonstrations, plus live music, to the sweet mix.

20. People power

At its core, 225—the magazine and the region—is about people. The creative, resilient, generous humans who call this place home are truly what make it stand out in a sea of other similar-size communities. Deeply committed to place and family, the people of the 225 area possess a sense of joy that’s not deterred by hardship and a forward-thinking spirit that’s rooted in our collective past. And that’s truly something special.

This article was originally published in the November 2025 issue of 225 Magazine.