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Research dossier · Places & Architecture

Lake Charles, Louisiana

City in Louisiana, United States

Architectural plans, a scale model, maps and brass measuring instruments
Places and architectureInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 25, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

Lake Charles is the fifth-most populous city in the U.S. state of Louisiana, and the parish seat of Calcasieu Parish, located on the namesake lake, Prien Lake, and the Calcasieu River. Founded in 1861 in Calcasieu Parish, it is a major industrial, cultural, and educational center in the southwest region of Louisiana. As of the 2020 U.S. census, Lake Charles's population was 84,872.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Lake Charles, Louisiana” as city in Louisiana, United States. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Lake, Charles and Louisiana.

Editorial reviewA valuable geographic starting point for tracing changing names, boundaries, uses and administrative responsibility. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1861, 2020—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Lake, Charles and Louisiana providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Lake Charles, Louisiana”, the useful work is to connect “city in Louisiana, United States” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 25, 2026. The first chronological checks are 1861 and 2020.

Critical limits

A single description cannot reconcile every naming convention, rebuilding phase or administrative transfer associated with a place. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.

Best used for
  • Historic place names
  • Jurisdictional context
  • Routes into maps and plans
Verify next

Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Lake Charles, Louisiana”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Lake Charles, Louisiana primary sources, Lake Charles, Louisiana archive and Lake research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Lake Charles, Louisiana”?
  2. Which earlier names or jurisdictions may reveal additional records?
  3. What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Lake Charles, Louisiana” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.