The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation (Oglala Oyanke in Lakota, also called Pine Ridge Agency) is an Oglala Sioux Native American reservation located in the U.S. state of South Dakota. Pine Ridge was established in the southwest corner of South Dakota on the Nebraska border and consists of 3,468.86 sq mi (8,984.306 km²) of land area, the eighth-largest reservation in the United States, larger than Delaware and Rhode Island combined.
The predominant land comprising the reservation lies within Shannon County and Jackson County, two of the poorest counties in the U.S. There are extensive off-reservation trust lands, mostly in adjacent Bennett County, and also extending into adjacent Pine Ridge, Nebraska in Sheridan County, just south of the community of Pine Ridge, South Dakota, the administrative center and largest community within the reservation. The 2000 census population of the reservation was 15,521, however in a study conducted by Colorado State University and accepted by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development estimated the resident population to reach 28,787.
Although Pine Ridge is the eighth largest reservation in the United States, it is also the poorest. Unemployment on the reservation hovers between 80% and 85%, and 49% live below the Federal poverty level. Adolescent suicide is four times the national average. Many of the families have no electricity, telephone, running water, or sewerage system. Many families use wood stoves to heat their homes. The population on Pine Ridge has among the shortest life expectancies of any group in the Western Hemisphere: approximately 47 years for males and 52 years for females. The infant mortality rate is five times the United States national average. Reservation population was estimated at 15,000 in the 2000 census, however the number was raised to 28,787 by HUD, following a Colorado State University door-to-door study.
