 The bay takes its name from the Spanish novel "Don Quixote", in which the "insula Barataria", or Barataria island, appears as a fictional territory governed by Sancho Panza.The bay is indented and marshy, with many islands.The surrounding low-lying Barataria country, south of New Orleans and west of the Mississippi River Delta, is noted for its shrimp industry (based at villages built on pilings above the coastal marshes), muskrat trapping, natural gas wells, oil wells, and sulfur production.