Census report dives into Indian Country

FROM THE ARCHIVE

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FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2002

The Census Bureau this week released more detailed statistics on the geographical and tribal makeup of the 4.1 million Americans who claimed some form of American Indian or Alaska Native ancestry on the Census 2000.

The report reflects a new question posed on forms distributed to millions of Americans for what has been called the most accurate count ever. Respondents were able to identify themselves as belonging to more than one race, pushing the number of Native Americans from 2.5 million to 4.1 million.

Of the amount, some 74 percent associated with a particular tribal ancestry. The ten largest groups were:

Cherokee - 729,533; up from 281,069 in 2000
Navajo - 298,197; up from 269,202
Latin American Indian - 180,940; up from 104,354
Choctaw - 158,774; up from 87,349
Sioux - 153,360; up from 108,272
Ojibwe - 149,669; up from 105,907
Apache - 96,833; up from 57,060
Blackfeet - 85,750; up from 27,104
Iroquois - 80,822; up from 45,212
Pueblo - 74,085; up from 59,533

In Alaska, there were four major tribal groupings. Eskimo weighed in with 54,761; Tlingit-Haida with 22,365; Athabascan with 18,838 and Aleut with 16,978. As with the numbers above, these were based on multiple-race data.

As for geographic data, most Native Americans live in the West (43 percent), followed by the South (31 percent), the Midwest (17 percent) and the Northeast (9 percent). These percentages were consistent whether single-race or multiple-race figures are used.

When it came to states, the top 10 with the largest number of Native Americans were:

California - 627,562
Oklahoma - 391,949
Arizona - 292,552
Texas - 215,599
New Mexico - 191,475
New York - 171,581
Washington - 158,940
North Carolina - 131,736
Michigan - 124,412
Alaska - 119,241

In terms of proportion of population, the list was rather different:

Alaska - 19.0 percent
Oklahoma - 11.4 percent
New Mexico - 10.5 percent
South Dakota - 9.0 percent
Montana - 7.4 percent
Arizona - 5.7 percent
North Dakota - 5.5 percent
Wyoming - 3.0 percent
Washington - 2.7 percent
Oregon - 2.5 percent

Going further into the states, the ten cities with the largest number of Native Americans were:

New York City, NY - 87,241 (1.1 percent of total population)
Los Angeles, CA - 53,092 (1.4 percent)
Phoenix, AZ - 35,093 (2.7 percent)
Tulsa, OK - 30,227 (7.7 percent)
Oklahoma City, OK - 29,001 (5.7 percent)
Anchorage, AK - 26,995 (10.4 percent)
Albuquerque, NM - 22,047 (7.7 percent)
Chicago, IL - 20,898 (0.7 percent)
San Diego, CA - 16,178 (1.3 percent)
Houston, TX - 15,743 (0.8 percent)

The report released this week will not be the last to focus on the Native population. Data on economics, language and other statistics will be released over time.

Get the Report:
Census 2002 Brief - The American Indian and Alaska Native Population: 2000 (2/13)

Relevant Links:
Census Bureau - http://www.census.gov