This is an important update that will affect the way you use our maps.
For many people, our work has been an entry point through a simple question: whose land am I on? That question remains important. However we will now be centering language instead of territory. As stated in our previous blog post territorial boundaries have been used to divide, control, and obscure the deeper relationships Indigenous peoples hold with land and waters.
Indigenous languages hold relationships to specific places including ecological knowledge, governance systems, and ways of understanding responsibility to land and waters. It is lived, place-based, and transmitted through language. When language is absent, that depth is lost.
Our map is not a legal document. It is a living, evolving educational tool. We encourage all users to do their own research, engage with local Indigenous communities, and understand that there is no single authoritative version of land — only many lived, relational truths. We are aware that there are people and institutions who may try to misuse this resource. That’s why we remain committed to making our work transparent, accountable, and community-centred.
Most maps represent Indigenous peoples through broad groupings (tribes) and fixed boundaries. This approach cannot capture the specificity of how knowledge is held. In many contexts, knowledge exists at the level of smaller family or community groups, with detailed relationships to particular rivers, coastlines, and ecosystems. Language is the primary way this knowledge is maintained and shared. Centering Indigenous language allows us to engage with ecological biomes.
We are investing in our Languages layer as a core part of the platform.
This includes:
Centering languages changes how users engage with the map. A language becomes an entry point to deeper questions:
This shift moves the map from a tool of identification toward a tool of relationship.
The ability to search and find territories still exists in the platform, but it is not front and center. We have preserved the links and nation pages, but they are now accessed through the front-page search (accessible at https://native-land.ca/place). Territories will no longer be provided through the API. We ask that users switch to Languages in order to move away from older models of thinking.
We have removed maps from our Nation/Territory pages, both interactive maps and images. These remain in our database for future reference, but they have been too deeply misused and consistently led to misinformation, so they have been hidden unless nations desire to show them.
Nations who wish to have direct control of their Territory or Language pages are invited to get in touch with Native Land Digital!
We encourage users to engage with Indigenous language where they are. Learn the Indigenous names of the places you live with. Support language revitalisation efforts led by communities. Approach this work with respect and a willingness to listen.
Native Land Digital will continue to work alongside communities to ensure that the platform reflects living knowledge systems with care and accountability. To address issues with data sovereignty and large language models the following step will be changes to our API access.
Ngā mihi maioha,
NLD Research whānau
Aotearoa NZ
Our work is inspired by our elders, community leaders, knowledge holders, youth and next generations.
The writings of Indigenous authors and creatives:
Robin Wall Kimmerer - Braiding Sweetgrass (2013)
Writing on plants, language, and reciprocal relationships with the living world.
Susan Chiblow (Ogamauh annag qwe) & P.J. Meighan - Language is Land, Land is Language (2022)
On how language carries governance, responsibility, and water knowledge.
Leanne Betasamosake Simpson - As We Have Always Done (2017); Theory of Water (2025)
Land-based knowledge, resurgence, and Indigenous relationships to place.
Linda Tuhiwai Smith - Decolonizing Methodologies (1999)
Foundational work on Indigenous knowledge and research.
Mishuana Goeman - Mark My Words: Native Women Mapping Our Nations (2013)
On mapping, language, and Indigenous spatial relationships.