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Is there anything really wrong with being called a Louisiana redneck?
It’s a part of our culture. Rednecks are hailed as being great in our song lyrics. They’re prominently featured in reality television. There are even video games about rednecks.
So, you’d think people who are rednecks would be proud to be called a redneck.
Wait. What is a redneck anyways? Well, according to the official bible of literature, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a redneck is:
“A white person who lives in a small town or in the country especially in the southern U.S., who typically has a working-class job, and who is seen by others as being uneducated and having opinions and attitudes that are offensive.”
Plus, we thought why not add in a few stereotypes? Cause, you know, rednecks like to hunt, drink, smoke and shoot things. And shop at Walmart.
Using that criteria, it’s not hard to scrape the internet, run some scientific data on where rednecks might live in Louisiana, and then put out a list.
Because, the data never lies, does it?
So, hold our beers and watch this. After analyzing all cities with a decent amount of people in them, we came up with this list as The Most Redneck Cities in Louisiana:
- Shreveport
- Westwego
- Mandeville
- Slidell
- Cut Off
- Broussard
- Ponchatoula
- Denham Springs
- West Monroe
- Galliano
Many of these are the types of places where old redneck ladies drive their motorized wheelchairs down the middle of town, towing their grandkids in a wagon. Where people have deer horns on their hoods. Where people wear camo to church.
Read on below to see where your town ranked.
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What redneck criteria did we use?
In order to rank the most redneck cities in Louisiana, we had to determine what criteria makes a redneck.
We threw a lot of criteria at this one in order to get the best, most complete results possible. Using Yelp and Google Maps, this is the criteria we used:
The dictionary definition categories
- Small towns
- Least amount of high school graduates
- Lives in the south
And the stereotypical categories
- Number of dive bars per city
- Number of mobile home parks per capita
- Number of tobacco stores per city
- Number of guns and ammo stores per city
- Walmarts, Golden Corrals, Bass Pro Shops, and Dollar Generals nearby
Note: For the sake of getting reliable numbers, we counted places within a city’s border, as well as within a short driving distance.
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1. Shreveport
Population: 200,000
Bars per capita: 4th in Louisiana
Tobacco stores per capita: 5th in Louisiana
Fishing/bait shops per capita: 5th in the state
Whoo-whee, Shreveport! You have the official bragging rights as being named the most redneck city in the entire state of Louisiana. You may now brag to your friends and share this endlessly on your Facebook walls.
First off, Shreveport has the 5th most tobacco stores in Louisiana, so rednecks there have plenty of places to get their chew and smokes. We call it the ‘chew factor.’ And, there are lots of bars in the area, and plenty of places to get bait.
Although it’s about half white here, Shreveport is crawling with rednecks. And did you know that several families from the Shreveport area were on CMT’s ‘My Big Redneck Vacation?’
2. Westwego
Population: 8,615
High school graduation rate: 59%
Chew factor: 7th
Fishing/bait shops per capita: 6th
You can tell what the rednecks in Westwego were doing when a lot of other kids were in school all day. They were out doing redneck stuff like fishing and shooting their guns out in the hills. The high school graduation rate here is below 60%. And, it’s 80% white here.
That means lots of rednecks.
Westwego, located on the other side of the Mississippi from New Orleans, has plenty of places to get fishing gear and chew, too.
3. Mandeville
Population: 11,827
Gun stores per capita: 1st in Louisiana
Bars per capita: 3rd in the state
Walmart rank: 10th
You might call Mandeville home of the rednecks with paychecks. There are lots of redneck factors in play here, and much of the 92% white population has good jobs.
Rednecks aren’t always broke. Some of them are weekend warriors who take off on weekends on long fishing and hunting trips. Based on the number of gun stores and bars in the area, it looks like the people in Mandeville have plenty of options to get ammo, gas up the truck, and head out to shoot at stuff every Friday night.
Mandeville is on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain, where you know the fishing is awesome.
4. Slidell
Population: 27,202
Waffle House rank: 6th in Louisiana
Walmart rank: 8th
Fishing/bait per capita:3rd in the state
Slidell is right next to Mandeville, where the necks who live here are a little less wealthy. But there’s plenty of redneck stuff to do here. The Waffle House factor is 6th in the state, and Slidell is 8th in the state for Walmarts per capita.
And of course, being so close to the lake and other fishing areas, Slidell has plenty of places to get cheap bait. Nothing’s more redneck than sitting on your back porch, throwing back a case of Busch Lights and listening to the LSU-Arkansas game on the radio.
No wonder so many rednecks live here.
5. Cut Off
Population: 5,258
Fishing rank: 4th in the state
Walmart rank: 3rd
High school graduation rate: 70%
Cut Off is a little area south of New Orleans, towards the end of the boot. There’s endless fishing opportunities for the rednecks who live here. It’s very blue collar – 3 out of 10 people here didn’t finish high school.
They have a Walmart all to their own way down there. Which means no lines when local rednecks want to stumble in barefoot looking to switch up their bait, trying to find something the fish will bite on that day.
6. Broussard
Population: 8,138
Chew factor: 2
Walmart rank: 4th
Gun stores per capita: 2nd
Broussard is just outside of Lafayette, and based on the data, it’s got lots of rednecks here.
The chew factor is a 2, meaning there’s simply no excuse for running out of dip. There’s a Walmart in this small city, and there are just about more places to buy guns and ammo than anywhere else in the state.
The rednecks who live here are going to have to take their Fords and Chevys out quite a bit if they want to fire off a few rounds. Or not. Do rednecks care if they upset their neighbors? Probably not.
7. Ponchatoula
Population: 6,577
Walmart rank: 2nd in Lousiana
Waffle House rank: 4th in the state
Bars per person: 10th in the state
Ponchatoula is near the north side of Lake Pontchartrain. The redneck factors are really high here, when you consider the number of Waffle Houses and bars in the area. Plus, they have a Walmart all to their very own, and there are 6 Dollar Stores within a short driving distance.
That means dad can get some cheap bait while the misses can shop for a new outfit for the barbecue this weekend.
Nearby is the Joyce Wildlife Management Area, where there’s great deer, rabbit and squirrel hunting, plus abundant largemouth bass, sunfish and catfish.
Sounds like redneck heaven.
8. Denham Springs
Population: 10,212
High school graduation rate 72%
Mobile home parks per capita: 3rd in LA
Gun stores: 5th
Bonus for Denham Springs having a Bass Pro Shops. They only open up a Bass Pro Shops when it’s clear there’s lots of demand, and based on the numbers, there are lots of rednecks in Denham Springs.
There are almost more mobile home/trailer parks in this area than anywhere else in the state. Plus, there’s plenty of places to get guns and ammo in the area. Nothing’s more redneck than a bunch of guys firing off some rounds into the bug zapper around the trailer park campfire.
9. West Monroe
Population: 13,085
Mobile home parks per capita: 4th in Louisiana
Chew factor: 4th
Gun stores per capita: 5th in the state
You might think that most of the rednecks in Louisiana would be off in the boonies in the northern part of the state. West Monroe is the only city on this list to be up north.
The numbers are off the charts high for rednecks in this area. The number of mobile home parks is 4th, the chew factor is a 5, and there are lots of places to get ammo. Which makes sense, since there are plenty of areas for the rednecks here to hunt. Nearby D’Arbonne National Wildlife Refuge is one of them.
Locals can pile into Peppers, a local bar in West Monroe, to chew and throw back a bunch of Natty Lights and speculate about when rut is gonna hit.
10. Galliano
Population: 7,750
High school graduation rate: 55%
Fishing shops per capita: 8th
Gun stores per capita: 19th in the state
Down Route 1 on the way to the end of the Louisiana boot is the small area of Galliano, where almost half of the residents here didn’t graduate high school. Plus, it’s 92% white here.
There is endless fishing here, and rednecks can shoot at waterfowl all day long in the nearby Pointe-aux Chenes Wildlife Management Area.
This is redneck wonderland. God Bless America.
There You Have It
According to the official dictionary definition of a redneck, and based on stereotypes that the internet says are true, using science to determine the most redneck cities in a state can’t be too far off. If you’re analyzing smaller cities in Louisiana with blue collar workers, where people have lots of options for drinking, smoking, hunting and Walmarting, this is an accurate list.
If you’re curious enough, here are the least redneck places in Louisiana:
- Old Jefferson (Pop. 6,250)
- Oak Hills Place (Pop. 7,957)
- Shenandoah (Pop. 18,774)
- Inniswold (Pop. 6,389)
- Fort Polk South (Pop. 8,992)
We also wrote a story on the worst places to live in Louisiana if you haven’t seen it yet. Click here to read it.
