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 The 1970 census had demonstrated the inaccuracy of many of the maps and boundaries used to identify American Indian reservations, and for the 1980 census, the Census Bureau worked to improve this information. For the 1980 census, the Census Bureau also made other major geographic improvements to support the collection and tabulation of data for the AIANA populations. It worked with the BIA and State certifying officials to identify the official names of all Federally and State-recognized reservations and to obtain maps of the reservation boundaries. The Census Bureau also worked with officials in Alaska to determine boundaries for the Alaska Native villages.

One other improvement for the 1980 census was the recognition of the Historic Areas of Oklahoma. Oklahoma has a very high percentage of the Nation’s American Indian population, but has only one reservation, the Osage Reservation. Discussions with over 30 tribal governments and organizations led the Census Bureau to delineate a single geographic entity that included all lands associated with former reservations elsewhere in the State. (The Historic Areas did not extend into urbanized areas or into major cities.)

For the 1990 census, the Census Bureau expanded the geographic programs for AIANAs. This resulted in an increase in the number of areas eligible to participate in various geographic programs offered to other governmental organizations, and more involvement in the geographic delineations by tribal and Alaska Native officials. Also, for the 1990 census, the Census Bureau designed and introduced the TIGER System, a digital geographic support system and data base containing all the geographic information necessary to take the census. This new development affected the AIANAs as well as all other geographic entities included in the 1990 census.

A variety of organizations and sources were involved in building the TIGER data base. In the early 1980s, the Census Bureau contacted tribal officials to Notes and References 5-8American Indian and Alaska Native Areas