Tribal Lands Maps on Dave’s Redistricting
Through the Boundary and Annexation Survey within the American Indian and Alaska Native Programs, the U.S Census Bureau updates and maintains information about legal boundaries, names, and official status of federally recognized American Indian reservations and off-reservation trust lands.
Using these data, Dave’s Redistricting has published more than 900 community maps of these lands. (The difference between community maps and regular district maps is described in Drawing Communities in DRA.)
As individual tribes may have reservation lands, or off-reservation trust lands, or both, we have organized and published these maps as described below. See also how each community map is titled, with the Yakama Nation in WA as an example.
- Reservation lands for each tribe (“Yakama Nation”)
2. Reservation + Off-reservation trust lands (“Yakama Nation and Off-Reservation Trust Land”)
3. Reservation lands for all the tribes in a given state on one map (“WA State Tribes”)
4. Reservation lands + off-reservation trust lands for all the tribes in a given state on one map (“WA State Tribes and Off-Reservation Trust Land”)
In #2 above, reservation and off-reservation trust lands are represented as separate communities (analogous to districts in a regular district map). In #3 above, each tribe’s reservation land shows as a separate community. And, in #4 above, each tribe’s reservation land shows as a separate community, and each tribe’s off-reservation trust land shows as another. Thus, the “Yakama Nation” community map shows a single community; the “Yakama Nation and Off-Reservation Trust Land” community map shows two communities; the “WA State Tribes” community map shows 28 communities; and the “WA State Tribes and Off-Reservation Trust Land” community map shows 48 communities.
Custom Overlays / Showing Tribal Lands Split Across Districts
You can use these community maps to show how tribal lands are split across districts.
These maps can be added to your district maps as Custom Overlays, by clicking “Add Maps” in the Custom Overlay dialogue (shown below). If you uncheck the “Mine” filter, you will see all the tribal land maps for a given state. If you only want to see those, you can add the filter “labels:tribes” (no quotes).
When you have added one or more of these community maps to a district map as custom overlays, the tribal lands are overlaid on top of the district map. For example, the screenshot below shows how the Yakama Nation is split across two congressional districts.
See Using Custom Overlays for more details.
Measuring Tribal Land Splitting
Similarly, when you have added one or more of these tribal land community maps to a district map as custom overlays, you can also analyze whether and to what degree they are split quantitatively. COI Splitting explains how to do this in detail.
Finally, if you want to see the underlying population and demographic data associated with these tribal lands, you can open these community maps as you would regular maps.
We are aware that redistricting is an important topic within and among Native American communities and that groups like the Native American Rights Fund are working to protect voting rights and ensure fair districts for Native Americans. We hope these maps can be a resource in those efforts. We welcome feedback and input from Native American communities.
