Oglala Sioux Tribe — RoamSchoolFamily

Background

Pine Ridge covers 3.5 thousand square miles, more than twice the size of Rhode Island, and the tribe's own site counts nine districts and more than fifty communities. Established in 1889, the reservation covers southwestern South Dakota and northwestern Nebraska. Pine Ridge was originally part of the Great Sioux Reservation, created by the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 and later reduced to five reservations. The Oglala Sioux Tribe maintains more than 52,000 enrolled members, and a twenty-one member council governs it under the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934.

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Visit and learn

Oglala Sioux Tribe's own site

Tribal lands have their own laws. Check the nation's site before you visit.

Parks on its homelands

The Badlands Wall dropping from prairie tableland to eroded buttes, seen from Big Badlands Overlook.

Badlands National Park

Badlands' South Unit is entirely tribal trust land, held in trust for the Oglala Sioux Tribe, and a 1976 memorandum of agreement between the park and the tribe set out shared priorities from recruiting and fee revenue to bison management. Source

Delicate white needle-like frostwork growing on top of boxwork inside Wind Cave

Wind Cave National Park

Pine Ridge, the Tribe's home since 1889, covers 3,500 square miles of southwestern South Dakota and northwestern Nebraska, more than twice the size of Rhode Island, and the Tribe counts more than 52,000 members. Its own account dates Pine Ridge to the Great Sioux Reservation created by the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty, and names the loss of the Black Hills, where this park stands, as a continuing point of contention. Source

Sources

Checked September 2026.

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