HOUMA, a city of southern Louisiana, U.S.A., on Bayou Terrebonne, 5om. S.W. of New Orleans, in a natural gas field; the parish seat of Terrebonne parish. It is served by the Southern Pacific railway and by water transportation. The population was 5,16o in 1920 (27% negroes l and was 6,S31 in 1930 by the Federal census. It is primarily an agricultural centre (sugar-cane and potato crops predominating), and is a large muskrat-fur market. It has shrimp, oyster and vegetable canneries, a cypress planing mill and an oyster-shell crushing plant. Three-fourths of the world's supply of dried shrimp comes from the parish. Houma was founded about 181o, was incorporated in 1846, and became a city in 1898. The name is an Indian word, meaning "mound."