The Sioux (also known as the Oceti Sakowin: “Seven Council Fires”) are a group of Native American tribes and First Nations peoples native to the Great Plains of North America.
Tere are three major divisions, based on dialect and geography: Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota.
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Lakota (Teton) was the westernmost group, historically associated with the Black Hills of South Dakota and the Northern Plains bison-hunting culture. This includes well-known bands like the Oglala, Sicangu (Brulé), and Hunkpapa.
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Dakota (Santee) was the easternmost group, originally from present-day Minnesota.
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Nakota (Yankton/Yanktonai) were situated between the other two, in parts of Minnesota and the Dakotas.
The Sioux were pushed westward from the Great Lakes region in the 17th–18th centuries, partly due to conflict with the Ojibwe and pressure from European colonization. On the Plains, they became skilled horse-mounted bison hunters and warriors, and figure prominently in 19th-century U.S. history — including the 1862 Dakota War, the Fetterman Fight, the Battle of the Little Bighorn (1876), and the Wounded Knee Massacre (1890), one of the most devastating events in Native American history.
Sioux nations are federally recognized and live primarily on reservations in North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Minnesota, as well as in Canada (as First Nations).
Major reservations include Pine Ridge, Rosebud, Standing Rock, and Cheyenne River. The Lakota language and Sioux cultural traditions — powwows, beadwork, the Sun Dance, and more — remain actively practiced, alongside ongoing political and legal efforts, such as disputes over the Black Hills, which the Sioux consider sacred land taken in violation of the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty.