New Orleans has been called the “Queen City of the South” since at least 1837. Charlotte, North Carolina, and Cincinnati, Ohio, are two other cities—among many others—that have been called “Queen City.”
 
Other New Orleans nicknames include “America’s Most Interesting City,” “Baghdad-on-the-Bayou,” “Big Crescent,” “Big Easy,” “Big Greasy,” “Big Sleazy,” “Birthplace of Jazz,” “Chocolate City,” “Chopper City,” “City of a Million Dreams,” “City of Yes,” “City That Care Forgot,” “City That Forgot to Care,” “Convention City,” “Crawfish Town,” “Creole City,” “Crescent City,” “Erb City,” “Gateway of the Mississippi Valley,” “Gumbo City,” “Hollywood South,” “Jump City,” “Mardi Gras City,” “Metropolis of the South,” “N’Awlins,” “Necropolis of the South,” “Nerlins,” “No Orleans” (after Hurricane Katrina), “NOLA,” “Northernmost Banana Republic,” “Northernmost Caribbean City,” “Old Swampy,” “Paris of America,” “Saint City,” “Silicon Bayou,” “Silicon Swamp” and “Sweet Lady Gumbo.”
         
       
Wikipedia: New Orleans
New Orleans (/njuː ˈɔːrli.ənz, -ˈɔːrˈliːnz, -ˈɔːrlənz/, or /ˈnɔːrlənz/; French: La Nouvelle-Orléans [la nuvɛlɔʁleɑ̃]) is a major United States port and the largest city and metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana.
             
24 January 1837, Southern Telegraph (Rodney, MS), pg. 2, col. 2:
NEW ORLEANS ILLIBERALITY.
(...) (Col. 3.—ed.)
Let it not be supposed from these remarks that we would encourage settled hostility to the Queen City of the South.
 
9 December 1837, Morning Herald (New York, NY), pg. 1, col. 1:
THE LAWS ONCE MORE.
(...)
The latest act of the laws perversion that has come before our notice is from the queen city of the south, New Orleans.
 
Google Books
New Orleans, the Crescent City, as it Appears in the Year 1895
By Young Men’s Business League (New Orleans, La.)
Pg. 10:
New Orleans has as many names as the city itself is many sided, it being popularly known as the “Crescent City” owing to the shape the land forms at the turn of the Mississippi on its way to the Gulf, making a complete crescent. It is also known among its admirers as the “Queen City of the South” a title richly deserved ...
   
OCLC WorldCat record
Queen New Orleans
Author: Harnett Thomas Kane
Publisher: New York Morrow 1949
Edition/Format:   Print book
 
Google Books
Nicknames of American Cities, Towns, and Villages, Past & Present
By Gerard L. Alexander
New York, NY: Special Libraries Association
1951
Pg. 68:
QUEEN OF THE SOUTH New Orleans, La.
 
Google Books 
The Elevator Constructor
International Union of Elevator Constructors
1963
Pg. 9:
New Orleans has been given a great deal of nicknames, some of which are — “The City That Care Forgot,” “America’s Most Interesting City,” “The Queen City of the Gulf,” “The Crescent City,” and many others, but that’s not really important.
 
Google Books
Poisoned Vows
By Clifford L. Linedecker
New York, NY: St. Martin’s Paperbacks
1995
Pg. 9:
Despite its catchy nicknames such as the “Queen City of the South” and the “Crescent City,” (because of the way it’s snuggled between the scythe-shaped shoreline of Lake Pontchartrain and lazy loops of the Mississippi River) New Orleans has a bawdy history that few cities can match.
   
Google Books
Program Notes for Band
By Norman E. Smith
Chicago, IL: GIA Publications
2002
Pg. 76:
W. H. Boom would have saved future researchers considerable time had he indicated which city was honored by this title. In addition to nearby Toronto, cities which have long had this royal nickname include Venice, Queen City of the Adriatic; New Orleans, Queen City of the Gulf; Buffalo, Queen City of the Lakes; and Cincinnati, Queen City of the West.
   
Pelicans Report
Re: the Queen City?
05-06-2002, 03:27 AMBGH
Quote:
Originally posted by Houma Hornet
people refer to Charlotte as “The Queen City”.
 
one of New Orleans many nicknames is “The Queen City”.
 
so who was “The Queen City” first ? Who is the real Queen City??
 
ESPN Radio was talking about that and did a search on the net about that. This is what cities they got as “The Queen City”:
 
Buffalo
New Orleans
Cincinnatti
Charlotte
Virginia, MN
 
They listed more but that is all I can remember.
 
Long Live the Queen City
SATURDAY, JANUARY 30, 2010
Why Is Burlington Called the Queen City?
The moniker “Queen City” is not unique to Burlington. You may have heard of other cities called the Queen City, as the nickname was (and still is) commonly assigned to a municipality that is the economic and social hub of its region. Other Queen Cities throughout the country include:
 
. Buffalo, NY (Queen City of the Great Lakes)
. Charlotte, NC
. Cincinnati, OH (Queen City of the West)
. Denver, CO (Queen City of the Plains)
. New Orleans, LA (Queen City of the South)
. Seattle, WA (Queen City of the Pacific Northwest, although this nickname was officially replaced in 1982 by “The Emerald City”)
. Springfield, MO (Queen City of the Ozarks)
. Terre Haute, IN (Queen City of the Wabash)
. Bangor, ME (Queen City of the East)
. Sedalia, MO (Queen City of the Prairie)
. Helena, MT (Queen City of the Rockies)
 
OCLC WorldCat record
Southern Queen : New Orleans in the nineteenth century
Author: Thomas Ruys Smith
Publisher: London ; New York, NY : Continuum International Pub. Group, 2011.
Edition/Format:   Print book : English
Summary:
New Orleans occupies a singular position within American life. Drawing deeply from Old World traditions and New World possibilities, the port city of the Mississippi has proved a lure to an extraordinary variety of travellers from its very earliest days. New Orleans has always been a world city like no other: it combines the magnolia and moonlight appeal of Southern romanticism, a popular sense of exoticism and decadence, the hint of illicit sex, and a cultural history without compare. However, alongside the glamour there runs another story—of tension, conflict, hardship and destruction. It was in the nineteenth century that the city’s most distinctive characteristics were forged, and chapters will be based around signal moments that reveal the city’s essential qualities: the Battle of New Orleans in 1815; the World’s Fair in 1884; the establishment of Storyville in 1897. Whilst painting a portrait of the public face of New Orleans, the book will look behind the carnival mask to explore aspects of the cityʹs history which have so often been kept hidden from view.—Published description from http://www.continuumbooks.com (Oct. 10, 2011)