Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation

A nation today

Delicate Arch, a freestanding sandstone arch about 52 feet tall, lit orange at sunset with the La Sal Mountains behind it.
Ymaup, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0

Background

President Lincoln set aside the original 2,080,000-acre Uintah Valley Reservation for the Uintah Band by executive order on October 3, 1861, and Congress ratified it in 1864. Congress approved the Uncompahgre Reservation in 1880 and President Chester A. Arthur set it apart by executive order on January 5, 1882. The Ute Indian Tribe is three bands, Uintah, White River and Uncompahgre, which organized under the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 and formed the Tribe in that year. A Bureau of Reclamation study of Colorado River water use says the Uintah Band has lived in what is now Utah since time immemorial, and that the federal government moved the White River and Uncompahgre bands out of Colorado to the Uintah Valley and Uncompahgre reservations. Today the Uintah and Ouray Reservation is the second largest Indian reservation in the United States at more than 4.5 million acres, and the same study notes that land ownership inside its boundaries is checkerboarded on the surface and split differently in the subsurface.

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Visit and learn

Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation's own site

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

Parks on its homelands

Painted Wall in Black Canyon of the Gunnison, a sheer dark cliff streaked with pink pegmatite veins dropping to the river far below.Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park

Four bands, the Tabeguache, Grand, Yampa and Uinta, make up the Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation next to Fort Duchesne, Utah, according to the Southern Ute Tribe's own history. That same account places the White River Ute, the Parianuche and Yamparika, in the valleys of the White and Yampa river systems and across the middle Colorado mountains. Source

Mesa Arch on the canyon rim at Island in the Sky, Canyonlands National Park, framing the drop to the White Rim country below.Canyonlands National Park

The Tribe's own site gives the Ute name as Land of the Sun, says the Utes originally came from Colorado, and says the Tribe manages 1.3 million acres of trust land. Source

White Navajo Sandstone dome rising above the red cliffs of Capitol Reef along Utah State Route 24.Capitol Reef National Park

Ute groups moved through the Capitol Reef area seasonally for hundreds of years, and NPS counts thirty-two tribes with an ongoing association with the park today, through current or historical traditional use. Source

Cliff Palace, the largest cliff dwelling in North America, set in a sandstone alcove with multistory masonry rooms and round kivas.Mesa Verde National Park

The Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation is the Utah Ute government, and NPS says the Ute were mountain people who moved between the high country in summer and the low country in winter, following the animals and the plants. Mesa Verde was one such ground. Source

Bear Lake at 9,475 feet, ringed by conifers under the high peaks of the Continental Divide in Rocky Mountain National Park.Rocky Mountain National Park

The Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation is one of three Ute tribes the park counts as the oldest continuous residents of Colorado and of the park itself. The park gives its reservation as the Uintah and Ouray Reservation in Utah, and notes that the three tribes spell the Ute name differently. Source

Affiliations

  • Mesa Verde National Park

    Mesa Verde works with 27 associated Pueblos, Tribes and Nations and counts three Ute governments, the Ute Mountain Ute, the Southern Ute of Colorado and the Ute Indian Tribe of Utah. NPS records that the Ute moved seasonally between high country in summer and low country in winter following animals and plants, and that Mesa Verde was one such hunting and gathering ground.

    https://www.nps.gov/meve/learn/historyculture/people.htm

  • Arches National Park ethnographic overview

    NPS lists the Tribe among the participants in the ethnographic overview Arches ran with the Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology at the University of Arizona, and says the results will inform management decisions at the park and go into its articles, exhibits and visitor education programs.

    https://www.nps.gov/articles/arch-eoa.htm

  • Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve

    The Tribe is one of the tribes Great Sand Dunes counts as affiliated, sharing traditional knowledge with park staff through consultation and with the public through park programs.

    https://www.nps.gov/grsa/learn/historyculture/affiliated-tribes-of-great-sand-dunes.htm

  • Colorado National Monument

    The monument says the Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation, along with the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, the Southern Ute Indian Tribe, the White Mesa Ute Community and the Navajo Nation, maintains cultural ties to the lands within and around it.

    https://www.nps.gov/colm/learn/historyculture/traditionally-associated-tribes.htm

Sources

Checked September 2026.

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