Geographically, New Orleans is part of the North American mainland, but it is famously described by historians as the "Northernmost Caribbean City." This is due to its profound cultural, architectural, and culinary ties to the Caribbean basin, particularly Haiti and Cuba. Following the Haitian Revolution in the late 1700s, thousands of refugees—free people of color, enslaved people, and white planters—fled to New Orleans, doubling its population and cementing its "Creole" identity. You can see this influence today in the city’s vibrant "shotgun" houses and "Creole cottages," its spice-heavy cuisine like jambalaya (a cousin of Caribbean rice and peas), and the rhythmic complexity of New Orleans jazz and second-line parades. Culturally, the city shares more DNA with Havana and Port-au-Prince than it does with neighboring American cities like Dallas or Atlanta.