Open Spaces with Native Names

We’re uplifting some of the open spaces commonly identified in Native languages – and recognizing the first stewards of the lands we now call the United States.

In doing this, we’re celebrating the care, cultivation, stories, ecological knowledge, and relationships Indigenous people have with the natural world.

This history has been intentionally erased at many of America’s open spaces and natural wonders. The locations have been renamed after presidents and individuals who supported the genocide, exploitation, and segregation of BIPOC people.

Let us recognize and appreciate the full history of the wonders across this country by identifying them through their ecology, as many first peoples did, and by supporting grassroots efforts to restore Indigenous place names.

Sources: Gripped Magazine, National Parks Conservation Association, Natives Outdoors, CNN, Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, The Spokesman-Review, The Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah), Vineyard Gazette, United States Geological Survey, Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Ojibwe People’s Dictionary, Idaho Fish and Game, National Park Service