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is the third-largest city and the principal city of the third largest metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Louisiana, as well as being the 99th-largest city in the United States.
It is the seat of Caddo Parish and extends slightly into neighboring Bossier Parish. Bossier City is separated from Shreveport by the Red River. The population was 200,145 at the 2000 census, and the Shreveport-Bossier City Metropolitan Area population exceeds 375,000.
Shreveport was founded in 1836 by the Shreve Town Company, a corporation established to develop a town at the juncture of the newly navigable Red River and the Texas Trail, an overland route into the newly independent Republic of Texas and, prior to that time, into Mexico.
Shreveport is the commercial and cultural center of the Ark-La-Tex, the area where Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas meet. Many people in the community refer to the two cities of Shreveport and Bossier City as "Shreveport-Bossier".