Marketing to Native Americans /American Indians / First Nation Demographics

Census 2000 showed that the United States population included 2.5 million people, .9 percent, who reported Native American/American Indian.  An additional 1.6 million persons reported Native American and at least one other race.

Geographically, over half of all Native Americans lived in ten states:  California, Oklahoma, Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, New York, Washington, North Carolina, Michigan and Alaska. 

New York and Los Angeles had the largest Native American populations, followed by Phoenix, Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Anchorage, Albuquerque, Chicago, San Diego, and Houston. Five of these top ten places were in the West. 

Of Native American tribal groupings with 100,000 or more people, those groups that had the largest reported responses were Cherokee, Navajo, Latin American Indian, Choctaw, Sioux, and Chippewa. 

The Selig Center projects that Native American buying power will rise from $40.8 billion in 2002 to  $57.3 billion by 2007.  Entrepreneurship is one of those factors considered to be a major force in behind the growth of Native American buying power, as Native American owned firms primarily in the areas of business services, personal services, and construction industries, outperformed all other groups in terms of receipts. 

In 2002, the top ten states with the largest Native American markets were California, Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, New York, Washington, North Carolina, Alaska, and Florida.

In 2002, the top ten states with the largest rate of growth of Native American buying power were Texas, Colorado, Georgia, south Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, Connecticut, Illinois, And Vermont. 

The top ten states with the largest Native American share of total buying power included Alaska, Oklahoma, New Mexico, South Dakota, Montana, North Dakota, Arizona, Wyoming, Washington, and Oregon.