Geographic Location of the Lakota Bands

 I am interested in the core homelands of the Lakota bands in historic times. I realize that the bands roamed all over and intermixed in other areas, but there are core locations that each band is identified with in historic times.

Paul Hedren's book After Custer identifies the discrete subsections of Sioux country occupied by each Lakota band from the 1850's onward.

1)The Two Kettles occupied the middle Missouri region in western South Dakota.

2) The Hunkpapa and Blackfeet Sioux lived farther north in western North Dakota and eastern Montana. Hedren notes throughout the book that the Hunkpapa were associated with the game-rich Little Missouri badlands in western North Dakota and the "Big Open" in the triangle of land between the Yellowstone, Missouri and Musselshell Rivers.

3) The Miniconjou are associated with the areas north and east of the Black Hills while the Sans Arc lived west and southwest of the Black Hills

4) The Oglala's homeland was the North Platte basin in Wyoming and Nebraska.

5) The Brule occupied the White River and Pine Ridge country of northern Nebraska and southern South Dakota.

6) I personally consider the Yanktonai Sioux to be honorary Lakota and they are commonly associated with the areas east of the Missouri River in northern South Dakota and southern North Dakota. As white expansion pushed them west they tended to associated with the Hunkpapa and areas along the Missouri River in eastern Montana.

Hedren notes that the Sioux continually expanded their lands westward and northward. This expansion is also a major theme in a recent book Lakota America.