In New Orleans, Louisiana, "downtown" refers to areas along the Mississippi River down-river (roughly east) from Canal Street, including the French Quarter, Treme, Faubourg Marigny, the Bywater, the 9th Ward, and other neighborhoods.

Contrary to the common usage of "downtown" in other cities, this application of the term does not include the New Orleans Central Business District (although from the influence of usage elsewhere, the use of "downtown" to refer to the Central Business District is sometimes heard, especially by people who moved to town from elsewhere).

Another contemporary definition of "downtown" New Orleans originated in 1974, when the Louisiana Legislature created the New Orleans Downtown Development District, a business improvement district (BID) bordered by Iberville Street, the Pontchartrain Expressway, Claiborne Avenue and the Mississippi River.^[1] This grouping is anchored by the CBD, but excludes the French Quarter and incorporates the Lower Garden District, the Louisiana Superdome, New Orleans Morial Convention Center, and Riverwalk Marketplace.

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In the 19th century, much of Downtown was still predominantly Francophone. It was center of the city's Creole communities. There was a traditional rivalry with the predominantly Anglophone "Uptown New Orleans" on the other side of Canal Street. The broad median of Canal Street became known as the "neutral ground", where partisans of the two sections of the city could meet for discussions and business without going into each other's territory.

The city was long traditionally divided into "Downtown" and "Uptown". Most of the low lying "Back of Town" was only substantially developed for residential neighborhoods after World War II with improved drainage in New Orleans. While the Downtown/Uptown division of the city has sometimes been over stated (by the late 19th century there were already substantial numbers of people of French descent Uptown and British & Irish descent Downtown), it continues to be a factor in New Orleans culture into the 21st century, for example the division of the Mardi Gras Indians into Downtown and Uptown tribes.

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