Metairie

Community in Jefferson Parish, southeastern Louisiana, just northwest of New Orleans; population (2000) 146,100. Metairie is by far the largest suburb of New Orleans.

The community's name dates from early in the 18th century, when French settlers in the region farmed the land in métairies, or small plots within a sharecropping system. Metairie today stretches from the Mississippi River in the south to Lake Pontchartrain in the north. Ethnically, this out-of-town suburb is 92% White, while the city of New Orleans is 62% Black.