Metairie is a census-designated place in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, United States and is a major part of the New Orleans Metropolitan Area. Metairie is the largest community in Jefferson Parish and the fifth-largest CDP in the United States. It is an unincorporated area that would be Louisiana's fourth-largest city if it were incorporated. The zip codes that serve the community are 70001-70006.Métairie is the French term for a small tenant farm which paid the landlord with a share of the produce, also known as sharecropping. In the 1760s, many of the original French farmers were tenants; after the US Civil War, the majority of the community's inhabitants were sharecroppers until urbanization started in the 1910s.