French Quarter

The French Quarter is the oldest neighborhood in the city of New Orleans, and has existed since New Orleans was founded in 1718 by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville. The city was originally centered around the French Quarter.

The Vampire Diaries Series
In The Originals, Zander traveled from Liberty Falls to the French Quarter to investigate a tip from Katherine Parker that someone was plotting a rebellion against him. His brother Erik soon followed Zander to the French Quarter, where they eventually decided to stay. Marcel Gerard and other residents of the neighborhood often colloquially refer to it as "the Quarter."

Several landmarks of the Quarter are featured in a montage near the beginning of the episode: after a view of the Superdome and greater New Orleans, there is a shot of featuring the statue of the same name and ; a  sign; a view down  with a view of the ; and a street corner in the Quarter where four men lift a casket sitting in the middle of the street.

Zander approached a witch who had a table set up on Chartres Street between St. Louis Cathedral and Jackson Square. This witch was later revealed to be Agnes, an Elder of French Quarter Coven.

Zander found Marcel performing karaoke at Maison Bourbon Jazz Club.

After the arrival of Zander, Jane-Anne Deveraux was killed by Marcel at the corner of Royal and St. Anne. Sophie Deveraux came to take the body of her sister and give her a proper funeral so she can be put to rest, but Marcel came and called his vampires to take the body away, as he wanted to find out what Jane-Anne was planning and intended to use her body as leverage against the witches.

The Originals Series
In Always and Forever, Camille revealed she had only just moved back to New Orleans after having lived there growing up. She returned to the city in order to find out information about the events surrounding her twin brother's death.

In The Battle of New Orleans, Francesca and her brothers revealed themselves to have been werewolves pretending to be humans, and once they triggered their curses and stole the moonlight stones that the Mikaelsons had commissioned, they dominated the Vampires, staging a coup at the compound that allowed them to seize control of the French Quarter.

In Alive and Kicking, the recently-resurrected Esther and Finn Mikaelson filled the power vacuum left after the death of the Guerrera family and took control over the French Quarter's Werewolf and Witch communities.

Supernatural Factions

 * Werewolf Faction - previously exiled from New Orleans by the vampires, then taken control of by Francesca Guerrera. Following her death, the wolves were led by Esther and Finn Mikaelson until they were overtaken by Jackson and Hayley, who currently lead the werewolves as Alphas. They are the faction that is essentially in control of the French Quarter, with help from the Mikaelsons and the vampires.
 * Vampire Faction - initially controlled by Klaus Mikaelson and his family from the city's founding in the 18th century to 1919, when the family was forced to flee town from their father Mikael. Afterward, the city was ruled with an iron fist by Marcel Gerard until he was unseated by Klaus again in 2011. He and Elijah then ruled the supernatural community at large until the coup by the Guerreras decimated the vampire community. Upon the exile of the few surviving vampires to Algiers, the vampire community were absent from the Quarter altogether until the marriage of werewolf and hybrid Alphas Hayley and Jackson, which returned the werewolves to power and sealed a formal alliance between the vampires and the werewolves that has not existed in at least a century.




 * Witch Faction - The witches lost the little control over the Quarter that they had upon Marcel's rise to leadership of the supernatural factions in the early 20th century, but following Klaus and Elijah Mikaelson's return to power in 2011, their involvement in the peace treaty gave them back their right to publicly practice and celebrate their ancestral witch heritage. After the deaths of the Guerrera pack, the French Quarter Coven, led by Esther Mikaelson, finally gained control over the city, due in part to their alliance with the werewolves who pledged allegiance to them in exchange for moonlight rings. Once Esther was turned into a vampire, however, the witches lost their seat of power and now appear to be in a disarray, as they have lost most of their members and all of their Elders.

Trivia

 * It is also known by the French name Vieux Carré ("Old Square").