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* Metric Name: American Indian Land Area Representation (LAR)  

* Tier: 2  

* Data Vintage: 09/2023  

* Unit Of Measure: Categorical  

* Metric Definition and Relevance: These data, developed for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Department of Interior, provide the details for tracts, parcels, and other relevant BIA lands. The data depict locations of Tribally controlled land mapped to the parcel level for all Land Area Codes (LAC) held in trust or restricted-fee by the United States. The Division of Land Titles and Records (LTR) compiled the data to support the Bureau of Indian Affairs Tribal Reservations. The source information for the parcel records are from the Trust Asset and Accounting Management System (TAAMS), which is the system of record. The term “Indian land” means: (A) Any land located within the boundaries of an Indian reservation, pueblo, or rancheria; (B) Any land not located within the boundaries of an Indian reservation, pueblo, or rancheria, the title to which is help: (i) In trust by the United States for the benefit of an Indian tribe or an individual Indian; (ii) By an Indian tribe or an individual Indian, subject to restriction against alienation under laws of the United States Definition: Indian land from 25 USC § 3501(2) | LII / Legal Information Institute.  

* Creation Method: The purpose of the American Indian (and Alaska Native) Land Area Representation (AIAN-LAR) Geographic Information System (GIS) dataset is to depict the external extent of federal Indian reservations and the external extent of associated land held in “trust” by the United States, “restricted fee” or “mixed ownership” status for federally recognized tribes and individual Indians. This dataset includes other land area types such as Public Domain Allotments, Dependent Indian Communities and Homesteads.

This GIS Dataset is prepared strictly for illustrative and reference purposes
only and should not be used, and is not intended for legal, survey,
engineering or navigation purposes. No warranty is made by the Bureau of
Indian Affairs (BIA) for the use of the data for purposes not intended by the
BIA. This GIS Dataset may contain errors. There is no impact on the legal
status of the land areas depicted herein and no impact on land ownership. No
legal inference can or should be made from the information in this GIS
Dataset. The GIS Dataset is to be used solely for illustrative, reference and
statistical purposes and may be used for government to government Tribal
consultation.

Reservation boundary data is limited in authority to those areas where there
has been settled Congressional definition or final judicial interpretation of
the boundary. Absent a settled Congressional definition or final judicial
interpretation of a reservation boundary, the BIA recommends consultation with
the appropriate Tribe and then the BIA to obtain interpretations of the
reservation boundary. The land areas and their representations are
compilations defined by the official land title records of the Bureau of
Indian Affairs (BIA) which include treaties, statutes, Acts of Congress,
agreements, executive orders, proclamations, deeds and other land title
documents.

The trust, restricted, and mixed ownership land area shown here, are suitable
only for general spatial reference and do not represent the federal
government’s position on the jurisdictional status of Indian country.
Ownership and jurisdictional status is subject to change and must be verified
with plat books, patents, and deeds in the appropriate federal and state
offices.

Included in this dataset are the exterior extent of off reservation trust,
restricted fee tracts and mixed tracts of land including Public Domain
allotments, Dependent Indian Communities, Homesteads and government
administered lands and those set aside for schools and dormitories. There are
also land areas where there is more than one tribe having an interest in or
authority over a tract of land but this information is not specified in the
AIAN-LAR dataset.

The dataset includes both surface and subsurface tracts of land (tribal and
individually held) “off reservation” tracts and not simply off reservation
“allotments” as land has in many cases been subsequently acquired in trust.
These data are public information and may be used by various organizations,
agencies, units of government (i.e., Federal, state, county, and city), and
other entities according to the restrictions on appropriate use. It is
strongly recommended that these data be acquired directly from the BIA and not
indirectly through some other source, which may have altered or integrated the
data for another purpose for which they may not have been intended.
Integrating land areas into another dataset and attempting to resolve boundary
differences between other entities may produce inaccurate results. It is also
strongly recommended that careful attention be paid to the content of the
metadata file associated with these data. Users are cautioned that digital
enlargement of these data to scales greater than those at which they were
originally mapped can cause misinterpretation. The BIA AIAN-LAR dataset’s
spatial accuracy and attribute information are continuously being updated,
improved and is used as the single authoritative land area boundary data for
the BIA mission. These data are available through the Bureau of Indian
Affairs, Office of Trust Services, Division of Land Titles and Records, Branch
of Geospatial Support.

Interpreting the presence/absence of AIANNH features and LAR features requires
care. Essentially, the Land Area Representation (LAR) delineates an area of
land that is often but not always under Tribal and/or Trust control of/for a
Tribe. It is likely that areas within the LAR that are not Reservation or
Trust lands are considered lands of significant interest by the Tribe in
question, and direct government-to-government consultation with the concerned
Tribe is strongly encouraged to understand the Tribe’s interpretation of the
LAR and parcel features. The AIANNH feature is in almost all cases essentially
a realty data set that indicates where Tribes have some legal interest in
actual land parcels, either because they are part of a reservation, are held
in trust for the tribe, or the Tribe itself has a controlling ownership
interest in fee.

  

* Credits: U.S. Department of Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs Developed by the U.S. Department of the Interior