What was the 1803 U.S. purchase of French territory called?

The 1803 U.S. purchase of French territory was called the Louisiana Purchase.

The United States agreed to buy the Louisiana Territory from France for $15 million. The treaty was signed on April 30, 1803, and the transfer was completed later that year. The purchase covered roughly 828,000 square miles west of the Mississippi River and nearly doubled the nation’s area.

President Thomas Jefferson had initially focused on obtaining New Orleans and navigation rights on the Mississippi. Napoleon Bonaparte’s decision to abandon plans for a French empire in North America led France to offer the much larger territory.

The Louisiana Purchase was not simply the modern state of Louisiana. It included land that later became all or parts of 15 present-day U.S. states. It is also distinct from the Alaska Purchase, which the United States made from Russia in 1867.