About this Dashboard
This data dashboard summarizes land area data from the BIA Annual Report of Indian Lands for the years 1966, 1975, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1983, 1984 and 1985 and can be filtered by one or more Native land areas, Year, County, and State. This dataset classifies land into three classes Allotted, Tribal, and Government. Allotted and Tribal Lands are both classes of Indian Trust lands. This data dashbaord also provides land area totals for the three land classes for both County and State.
About the Data
The best source of data on Native Lands between 1912 and 1920 are the Annual Reports of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. The reports from 1912 to 1920 include an acreage Acreage Agency Recapitulation table, broken down by Reservation We have tabulated and made that data availabe in machine Readable format availabe here. For land data between 1966 and 1984 the best source is the BIA’s Annual Report of Indian Lands and the source for this dashboard. The Native Lands Advocacy Project (NLAP) has searched the National Archives and Library of Congress in DC, as well as numerous online databases, and have only been able to find these reports for the following years: 1966, 1975, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981,1982, 1983, 1984, and 1985. Each report was manually transcribed by the NLAP and entered into a database. For recent land data see our 2019 dataset provided by the BIA and accompanying data dashboard.
Why is this Data and Dashboard Important?
These datasets can be used to track land area totals and lands status changes over time.
Questions This Dataset Can Help Answer:
- How many acreas of BIA managed Allotted, Tribal, and Government lands are there on my Reservation, County, and State?
- How have those acreage totals changed over time?
This data is particularly useful to compare with totals published by your county assessor.
Limitations
The data is only as good as what was published by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. County data for Alaska doesn’t exist before 1981. While we do our best to quality check data transcriptions, errors do occur. Doulbe check discrepancies with original printed Annual Report of Indian Lands.
