In this index we sort US Native American Tribes by Region. Ethnographers commonly classify the native peoples of the United States and Canada into ten geographical culture regions with shared cultural traits.
These cultural regions are broadly based upon the locations of indigenous peoples of the Americas from the time of early European and African contact beginning in the late 15th century.
When indigenous peoples have been forcibly removed by nation-states, they retain their original geographic classification. Some groups span multiple cultural regions.
The following list groups native american indian tribes by region of origin, followed by the current tribal names and/or reservation locations.
Tribes are ethnically, culturally and linguistically diverse.There are 562 federally recognized Indian tribes, bands, nations, pueblos, rancherias, communities and Native villages in the United States.
The Arctic, or circumpolar, peoples are the indigenous inhabitants of the northernmost regions of the world. For the most part, they live beyond the climatic limits of agriculture, drawing a subsistence from hunting, trapping, and fishing or from pastoralism.
Climatic gradients, rather than simple latitude, determine the effective boundaries of the circumpolar region, and these gradients have their counterparts in the major environmental transitions.
Of these transitions, the most important is the tree line, which marks the northern margin of the coniferous forest, or taiga.
The Sub-Arctic culture region lies south of the Arctic and encompasses most of present-day Alaska and most of Canada, excluding the Maritime Provinces (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island), which are part of the Northeast culture area.
The topography is relatively flat, the climate is cool, and the ecosystem is characterized by a swampy and coniferous boreal forest (taiga) ecosystem.
Small kin-based bands were the predominant form of social organization, although seasonal gatherings of larger groups occurred at favoured fishing locales.
This culture area reaches from the present-day Canadian provinces of Quebec, Ontario, and the Maritimes (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island) south to the Ohio River valley (inland) and to North Carolina (on the Atlantic Coast).
The topography is generally rolling, although the Appalachian Mountains include some relatively steep slopes. The climate is temperate, precipitation is moderate, and the predominant ecosystem is the deciduous forest.
There is also extensive coastline and an abundance of rivers and lakes.
The Southeast culture region reaches from the southern edge of the Northeast culture area to the Gulf of Mexico; from east to west it stretches from the Atlantic Ocean to somewhat west of the Mississippi valley.
The climate is warm temperate in the north and grades to subtropical in the south. The topography includes coastal plains, rolling uplands known as the Piedmont, and a portion of the Appalachian Mountains; of these, the Piedmont was most densely populated.
The predominant ecosystems were coastal scrub, wetlands, and deciduous forests. The region’s economy was primarily agricultural and often supported social classes. Most cultures were structured around hereditary classes of elites and commoners, although some groups used hierarchical systems that had additional status levels.
The Plains Indian culture area comprises a vast grassland between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains and from present-day provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan in Canada through the present-day state of Texas in the United States.
The area is drained principally by the Missouri and Mississippi rivers; the valleys of this watershed are the most reliable sites from which to obtain fresh water, wood, and most plant foods.
This culture group relied on the bison as their main source of subsistence.
The Southwest culture area lies between the Rocky Mountains and the Mexican Sierra Madre, mostly in present-day Arizona and New Mexico. The topography includes plateaus, basins, and ranges.
The climate on the Colorado Plateau is temperate, while it is semitropical in most of the basin and range systems; there is little precipitation and the major ecosystem is desert.
The landscape includes several major river systems, notably those of the Colorado and the Rio Grande, that create linear oases in the region.
The region was the home of both agricultural and hunting and gathering peoples, although the most common lifeway combined these two economic strategies.
The Great Basin culture area is centred in the mountain deserts of present-day Nevada and includes adjacent areas in California, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and Arizona.
It is so named because the surrounding mountains create a bowl-like landscape that prevented water from flowing out of the region.
The most common topographic features are basin and range systems; these gradually transition to high mountain plateaus in the north. The climate is temperate in the north and becomes subtropical to the south. The predominant ecosystem is desert.
The peoples of this region were hunters and gatherers and generally organized themselves in mobile, kin-based bands. Seeds, piñon nuts, and small game formed the bulk of the diet for most groups, although those occupying northern and eastern locales readily adopted horses and equestrian bison hunting after Spanish mounts became available.
The Plateau culture region is surrounded by mountains and drained by two great river systems, the Fraser and the Columbia. It is located in present-day Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia.
Topographically, the area is characterized by rolling hills, high flatlands, gorges, and mountain slopes. The climate is temperate, although milder than the adjacent Plains because the surrounding mountain systems provide protection from continental air masses.
The predominant ecosystems are grassland and high desert, although substantial forested areas are found at altitude.
Efficient hunters and gatherers, Plateau groups supplemented fish with terrestrial animals and wild plant foods, especially certain varieties of camas (Camassia).
The primary political unit was the village; among some groups a sense of larger tribal and cultural unity led to the creation of representative governments, tribal chieftainships, and confederations of tribes.
The Callifornia culture region approximates the present states of California (U.S.) and northern Baja (Mexico). Other than the Pacific coast, the region’s dominant topographic features are the Coast Range and the Sierra Nevada; these north-south ranges are interspersed with high plateaus and basins.
An extraordinary diversity of local conditions created microenvironments such as coasts, tidewaters, coastal redwood forests, grasslands, wetlands, high deserts, and mountains.
California includes representatives of some 20 language families. Many California peoples organized themselves into tribelets, groups of a few hundred to a few thousand people that recognized cultural ties with others but maintained their political independence.
Agriculture was practiced only along the Colorado River; elsewhere hunting, fishing, and gathering provided a relatively easy living. Acorns were the most important of the wild food sources.
The Northwest Coast culture region is bounded on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the east by the Coast Range, the Sierra Nevada, and the Rocky Mountains; it reaches from the area around Yakutat Bay in the north to the Klamath River area in the south.
It includes the coasts of present-day Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, much of southern Alaska, and a small area of northern California.
The topography is steep and in many places the coastal hills or mountains fall abruptly to a beach or riverbank. There is an abundance of yearly precipitation (30-160 inches). The predominant ecosystems are temperate rainforests, intertidal zones, and the ocean.
The resource base was so rich that they are unique among nonagricultural peoples in having created highly stratified societies of hereditary elites, commoners, and slaves.
Grouping tribes by region shows shared linguistic lines and cultural similarities.
In Tribes by Region, you will also find links to other relevant information about each Indian tribe.
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