Standing Rock Indian Reservation

Reservation in south-central North Dakota and north-central South Dakota, bounded to the northwest by Cedar Creek, to the northeast by the Cannonball River, and to the east by Lake Oahe on the Missouri River; area 543,915 ha/1,343,000 acres; population (1990) 8,000. The Upper and Lower Yanktonai Sioux live in the North Dakota section of the reservation; on the South Dakota side are the Hunkpapa and Blackfeet Sioux.

Organized in 1868 with 1.62 million ha/4 million acres, it was reduced in 1910 to its present size in order to open land for white settlement. Most of the land is made up of rugged hills, buttes, and grassland, punctuated by semi-arid areas, and much of the farm or grazing land is rented to whites.

Standing Rock College (1971) is on the reservation, in Fort Yates, North Dakota.