The six largest Native American tribes in the United States

Population figures for Native nations can look straightforward at first glance, yet even a basic question like which tribes are the largest quickly becomes complicated. Census counts, tribal enrollment rolls, and broader Indigenous identities do not always line up, and each method highlights something different about Native life in the United States. To understand the six largest Native American tribes, I focus on how size is measured, what recent federal data shows, and how those numbers intersect with the history and sovereignty of specific nations.

Rather than claiming a single definitive ranking that the available sources cannot verify, I walk through the strongest documented cases: Navajo Nation, Cherokee, and Aztec communities in official Census data, along with Choctaw, Sioux, and Apache as widely recognized large nations whose prominence is supported by demographic and historical reporting. Taken together, these examples offer a clearer picture of how population, land, and identity interact for some of the best known Indigenous nations.

How “largest tribe” is defined

Any discussion of the largest tribes starts with the question of definition. The federal Census counts anyone who self-identifies as American Indian or Alaska Native, either alone or in combination with other races, which means its totals capture broad identity rather than legal citizenship in a particular nation. By contrast, Tribal Membership is a legal and political category that depends on the “enrollment criteria of the tribe/nation,” as explained in guidance on Tribal Membership, and each nation sets its own rules.

This difference has real consequences for any list of “largest” tribes. A tribe may have a relatively modest enrollment roll but a much larger number of people who report that ancestry on Census forms, or the reverse. Some individuals identify with more than one Native nation, while others choose a broad category such as “American Indian and Alaska Native” without naming a specific tribe. Because the sources here do not provide a complete ranked table of tribal populations, I treat Navajo Nation, Cherokee, and Aztec as clearly documented large groups in recent Census data, and present Choctaw, Sioux, and Apache as major nations supported by demographic or historical reporting, not as a precise top six ranking.

Native American population trends and identity

Recent federal data shows both growth and complexity in Indigenous identity. Of the “3.2 m” Americans who identified as American Indian or Alaska Native alone in 2022, around “45%” are of Hispanic or Latin background, a reminder that Native identity often overlaps with other ethnic categories and that Indigenous communities extend into Mexico, Central America, and South America. Those figures, drawn from reporting on Native Americans in, highlight how rigid racial boxes fail to capture the full story.

Geography also shapes where large tribal populations are concentrated. The same reporting points out that Native Americans are especially numerous in states such as Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, where long-standing Indigenous homelands cross the present-day border with Mexico. When the Census allows people to self-identify, it captures those layered identities, but it also produces higher counts than tribal enrollment records, which is one reason population figures for the biggest tribes can vary depending on the source and method.

Navajo Nation: population and land

Navajo Nation is often cited as the largest Native American tribe when both population and land area are considered together. One overview of Indigenous genealogy notes that the “largest tribal group in terms of both population and land mass” is the Navajo or Diné, and that the reservation territory is larger than ten U.S. states, a scale that underscores how much of the Southwest is still Indigenous land under tribal jurisdiction. Another federal story on detailed race and ethnicity data reports that Navajo Nation Reservation was the most frequent response among people who identified as a single detailed American Indian group, which reinforces its demographic weight.

Census counts and tribal rolls do not always match, but both show a very large community. According to a detailed entry on Navajo demographics, the U.S. census of 2020 reported that “315,086” Americans are Navajo alone, while “423,412” are Navajo in combination with another race or tribal group, figures that reflect both a strong core identity and extensive intermarriage with other communities. Separate reporting on how U.S. Census reflects than tribal enrollment records explains that self-identification can push Navajo figures even higher than official membership rolls, which is part of why some analyses now describe Navajo Nation as larger than Cherokee by certain measures.

Cherokee: a vast self-identified population

Cherokee remains one of the best known Indigenous nations in the United States and has a very large population by self-identification. A federal “Did You Know” fact sheet for American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month states that “1.5 m” people identified as Cherokee in the 2020 Census, and that Cherokee was the largest American Indian group by that measure. The same document, which draws on Census data, makes clear that those 1.5 m people are counting ancestry and identity, not necessarily enrollment in any of the federally recognized Cherokee governments.

On the political side, there are “Today” three federally recognized Cherokee tribes: Cherokee Nation, which is described as the largest of the three and is based in Oklahoma, the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians, also in Oklahoma, and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, based in North Carolina. A research guide on Cherokee Nation and related governments traces how these communities emerged from forced removal, treaty disputes, and survival in both Oklahoma and the Southeast. The gap between the 1.5 m self-identified Cherokee in Census data and the smaller number enrolled in these three governments illustrates how ancestry, community participation, and legal citizenship can diverge.

Aztec communities in American Indian and Alaska Native data

While Navajo and Cherokee dominate many public conversations about tribal size, recent Census work on detailed race and ethnicity groups reveals another large category: Aztec. A federal press release on the 2020 detailed DHC file explains that “Among” all American Indian and Alaska Native groups, “Aztec (387,122) was the largest alone group and Cherokee (1.5 m) the largest alone or in any combination group in 2020,” a finding that underscores how Indigenous identities linked to Mexico and Central America are part of the same statistical universe as U.S. tribes. The figure “387,122” for Aztec alone is striking, particularly given the political and legal differences between Aztec-descended communities and federally recognized American Indian nations.

The same release notes that Cherokee’s “1.5 m” alone or in any combination made it the largest such group, which dovetails with the heritage-month fact sheet but adds the context of Aztec as a major category in its own right. By including Aztec within the broader American Indian and framework, the Census reflects how Indigenous people from Mexico and further south are living in the United States and choosing to describe themselves using both ancestral and contemporary terms. That choice affects any attempt to talk about the “largest tribes,” because it reveals a large Indigenous population that does not map neatly onto the U.S. tribal enrollment system.

Choctaw Nation and the legacy of the Five Civilized Tribes

Choctaw Nation is widely described as one of the largest tribes in the country, even though the precise ranking cannot be confirmed from the sources provided here. A personal account from a citizen notes, “I am a member of the Choctaw Nation. Our Nation is headquartered in Durant, Oklahoma, and is the country’s third largest tribe,” language that reflects how Choctaw Nation presents itself and is perceived. Historically, Choctaw people were among the Southeastern nations subjected to forced removal along the Trail of Tears, and their government rebuilt in what is now Oklahoma.

Choctaw is also one of the “Five Civilized Tribes,” a term that a historical entry explains was applied by the United States government in the early federal period to Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee (Creek), and Seminoles. Another section of the same reference notes that “They ( the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians ) also hunted and fished for some of their diet,” a reminder that despite the loaded label of Five Civilized Tribes, these communities maintained traditional practices alongside adaptation to new economic and political pressures. Modern Choctaw governance in Oklahoma and Mississippi continues to draw on that history while managing large citizen populations and significant economic enterprises.

Sioux Nation: Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota divisions

The people commonly grouped under the English term Sioux represent another very large Indigenous nation, although, again, the exact population ranking relative to other tribes is not fully documented in the sources here. A detailed overview explains that the Sioux, also referred to as the Sioux Tribe, are “Comprising the Lakota ( Dakota and Lakota ), Dakota, and Nakota divisions,” and that these divisions reflect distinct dialects, histories, and contemporary communities. That description of Comprising the Lakota, Dakota and Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota highlights how a single umbrella term can cover several distinct but related nations.

Historically, the Sioux have occupied a vast territory across the Northern Plains, and modern reservations and communities span multiple U.S. states and parts of Canada. Their population is spread across many federally recognized tribes, which makes it harder to capture the full size of the nation in a single statistic. A general demographic overview of the United States notes that, among groups Indigenous to the contiguous United States, Cherokee and Navajo are the largest self-reported tribes, with “Cherokee (1,449,888)” and “Navajo (434,910)” identified in that context, but it does not provide a parallel figure for Sioux. That absence is why I treat Sioux as a major nation by history and distribution rather than assigning it a specific place in a numerical top six.

Apache people: resistance and modern numbers

The Apache people are another large Indigenous group whose presence is more clearly documented in historical and thematic sources than in a precise ranking table. A research starter on their history notes that “The Apache ( Apache people ) have a notable history of resistance against colonization, facing conflicts with European settlers and the U.S. military,” and that they maintained distinctive cultural practices across several related bands. The same reference reports a population of approximately “191,823” as of 2022, which gives a sense of their scale even if it does not specify how that figure compares directly to other large tribes.

Apache communities today are spread across several reservations and urban centers in the Southwest, and their governments manage land, natural resources, and cultural programs while navigating federal policy. The historical record of resistance to European colonization still shapes how Apache leaders talk about sovereignty and treaty rights. While I cannot verify that Apache is among the six largest tribes by any single metric, the combination of a six-figure population and a prominent place in U.S. history justifies including them in a discussion of major Native nations.

Beyond the big six: diversity among hundreds of tribes

Focusing on a handful of large tribes risks obscuring the diversity of Indigenous nations in the United States. A short explainer on tribal counts notes that “How many Native American tribes are in the U.S.?” is itself a complex question, but it emphasizes that “People have lived in the Americas for thousands of years” and that “Within the” modern United States there are hundreds of recognized tribes along with many more communities seeking recognition. That perspective from How Native American history is framed reminds readers that population size is only one dimension of significance.

Federal graphics on tribal groupings list many other sizeable peoples, including “Alaskan Athabascan, Comanche, Tohono, Odham, Tlingit, Haida,” among the 25 largest groupings of American Indians and Alaska Natives. These names, drawn from a Census graphic, show how regional cultures in Alaska, the Southwest, and the Pacific Northwest contribute large populations of their own. When combined with the detailed figures for Navajo Nation, Cherokee, and Aztec, they suggest that any attempt to rank tribes by size should be treated as a snapshot shaped by method and category, not a final verdict on Indigenous presence.