Lake Charles, Louisiana, United States

🇺🇸 Lake Charles is the fifth-largest incorporated city in the U.S. state of Louisiana, located on Lake Charles, Prien Lake, and the Calcasieu River. Founded in 1861 in Calcasieu Parish, it is a major industrial, cultural, and educational centre in the south-west region of the state.

It is considered a regionally significant centre of petrochemical refining, gambling, tourism, and education, being home to McNeese State University and Sowela Technical Community College. Because of the lakes and waterways throughout the city, metropolitan Lake Charles is often called the Lake Area.

Economy The top employer, the Calcasieu Parish School System, employs approximately 5,000 workers. The second-largest employer is L'Auberge Casino Resort, which has 2,400 workers.

Industry and manufacturing Several petrochemical plants and an oil refinery are located nearby along the Calcasieu Ship Channel. Turner Industries, Westlake Chemical Corporation, and Citgo each employ over a thousand people. The Trunkline LNG terminal, immediately south-west of Lake Charles, is one of the United States' few liquified natural gas terminals. It has facilities for LNG receipt, storage, and re-gasification. Other industrial companies include PPG Industries, Phillips 66, Sasol, and W. R. Grace. Local industry also includes a number of manufacturing companies. Chennault International Airport hosts AAR Corp, which services airplanes, and a Northrop Grumman facility. The Shaw Group has a manufacturing facility which manufactures and exports parts for nuclear power plants.

Commerce and retail With small businesses, big box stores, and a regional mall, Lake Charles serves as the shopping and retail hub of the five-parish area. Prien Lake Mall, which serves nearly 300,000 people is anchored by three department stores: Dillard's, Kohl's, and JCPenney. It has over 80 retail options. Retailers include Talbots, Gap, Aéropostale, Bath & Body Works, Ulta Beauty, Express, American Eagle, Buckle, Spencer's, and Hollister. The Lake Charles Power Center is a shopping area that has 1,000,000 square feet (93,000 m2) of shopping space. The Cottage Shop District supports approximately a dozen small businesses. L'Auberge du Lac Casino Resort offers upscale clothing boutiques.

Casinos Lake Charles has Louisiana's biggest casino market. The L'Auberge du Lac Casino Resort is a 242 acres (98 ha), 26-story hotel in Lake Charles. It has nearly 1000 guest rooms, a casino, golf course, spa, and meeting center. A second casino, the Golden Nugget Lake Charles, opened in 2014 next to L'Auberge du Lac. The 18-story casino resort hotel has more than 740 guest rooms, a casino, golf course, meeting space, retail corridor and a private beach and marina.

While Horseshoe Lake Charles is technically in one of the city's suburbs known as Westlake, Louisiana, it forms part of the city's gambling market along with Delta Downs in Vinton, Louisiana and Coushatta Casino Resort in Kinder, Louisiana.

Universities and colleges The city has one university and one community college. McNeese State University, on a 121-acre (0.49 km2) campus lined with oak trees in the heart of Lake Charles, is a four-year public university in the University of Louisiana System. Contraband Bayou flows through it. McNeese was founded in 1939 and named after educator John McNeese. It offers over 80 majors, and includes the colleges of Business, Education, Engineering and Engineering Technology, Liberal Arts, Nursing, Science, Honors College, and the Doré School of Graduate Studies. It is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. Other properties include a 65-acre (260,000 m2) athletic plant and student apartment complex, the Louisiana Environmental Research Center, Burton Coliseum, the 503-acre (2.04 km2) MSU Farm, and nearly 1,600 acres (6.5 km2) of donated farm property used for research, farming, and ranching. Over 8,500 students attend McNeese.

Sowela Technical Community College offers associate degrees, technical diplomas, certificate programs, and general education courses that can transfer to four-year universities. Delta School of Business and Technology specializes in vocational courses.