Nina Baughman, age 15, of Carson City, Nev., for her question:
HOW MANY INDIAN RESERVATIONS ARE THERE?
A reservation is an area set aside for the exclusive use of Indians. There are 285 federal and state Indian reservations in the nation today.
Together, the reservations in the U.S. cover about 50 million acres. They are located in 30 states.
The largest is the Navajo reservation, which covers about 14 million acres in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, all told about the same size as West Virginia. About 100,000 Navajos live there.
Some California reservations are called rancherias and cover less than 10 acres. Some are inhabited by fewer than 10 Indians.
About 800,000 Indians live in the U.S. today, of whom half make their homes on reservations.
Farming is the chief economic activity on most Indian reservations, but manufacturing is a growing source of employment and income. Leading industries on Indian lands include jewelry making and the processing of wood products.
A number of tribes lease mineral rights, operate businesses and offer tourist attractions on their reservations. But most reservations lack well developed economics. It has been estimated that about 40 percent of all reservation Indians have no jobs. In fact, reservation Indians have the highest unemployment rate and the lowest average income of any U.S. group.
Living conditions on many of the reservations are generally substandard. Indians also are the least educated and have the poorest health of all Americans.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs, an agency of the Department of Interior established in 1824, manages most federal programs on Indian reservations.
The nation's first reservation was established in 1759. Called the New Jersey Colony, it set aside land for the Delaware Indians at Indian Mills in what is now Burlington County.
During the early and mid 1800s, advancing white settlers seized more and more Indian lands. The federal government forced the Eastern Indians to move to reservations west of the Mississippi River.
By the late 1800s, most Indians had been moved to reservations in the Western states.