Creole cottage is a term use to refer to a type of vernacular architecture indigenous to the Gulf Coast of the United States. The style was a dominate house type in the former settlements of French Louisiana in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi, although examples can also be found in Florida and Texas. This type of architecture is also sometimes referred to as Gulf Coast cottage and more rarely as Cajun cottage. The style is popularly thought to have evolved from French and Spanish colonial house-forms, although the true origins are unclear. The term is usually used to denote that it is a story-and-a-half gabled house in which the front or both slopes of the high-pitched roof extend over a full-length porch or gallery. This type of house was common along the Gulf Coast and associated rivers in the 19th century.