Indian reservations Indian reservations are owned by the Indians and are held in trust for them by the federal or state governments. The Bureau of Indian Affairs, an agency of the Department of the Interior, manages most of the federal programs on reservations. Canada has more than 2,200 areas set aside for Indians. These areas are called reserves. For more information about them, see Indian, American .
Indian reservations differ greatly in size and population.
The Navajo reservation, the largest U.S. Indian reservation, is about the size of West Virginia. This reservation also has a larger population than any other U.S. reservation. About 91,000 Navajo live there. Indian reservations consist of a wide variety of land. Some spread across desert and mountain areas of the Southwest, and others occupy forest and lake regions of the Midwest and Northwest.