The United States' 2000 Census showed that 2.48 million (0.9%) of the 281.4 million U.S. residents reported their race as "American Indian or Alaska Native." These Census respondents were also asked to provide the name of their principal tribal affiliation. The Native American population in the U.S. grew by more than one-half million people, or 26 percent, between 1990 and 2000. This growth was twice the overall national population growth rate of 13 percent. Just under half (48%) of Native Americans live in the West census region, followed by the South with 29 percent. The Midwest is third (16%) followed by the Northeast with just under 7 percent. The five states with the largest Native American populations are California, Oklahoma, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. Together, these states comprise almost 47 percent of the U.S. Native American population. Just under one-fourth live in either California or Oklahoma. Alaska has the largest proportion of overall population who are Native Americans at 15.6 percent, followed by New Mexico (9.5 %), and South Dakota (8.3%). Oklahoma is fourth at 7.9 percent. Just 1.0 percent of California's 33.9 million people in 2000 were Native Americans. The top five tribal groupings nationally are Cherokee, Navajo, Sioux, Chippewa, and Latin American Indian. Shown in the table below are percentages of Native Americans and of Whites, 16 or older, in the United States who participated in the 25 outdoor recreation activities listed. Generally, the percentages are fairly close to one another. Over 80 percent of both populations walked for pleasure, about three quarters of each attended outdoor family gatherings, nearly 60 percent went driving for pleasure, over 40 percent visited a wilderness or primitive area, and about 40 percent went biking. Percentages of American Indians were noticeably greater for the activities of driving motor vehicles off-road, visiting a farm or other agricultural setting, hunting, backpacking, horseback riding, and rock climbing. Percentages of Whites participating were noticeably greater only for the activities of orienteering and gardening or landscaping for pleasure. There are many more similarities than differences in percentages of each population participating in the various activities as the outdoor recreation of choice.

Eastern Metropolitan Areas and Their Residents.-Just over 80 percent of the Nation's population lives in one of this country's 276 metropolitan areas. This percentage is up from 77 percent in 1990. The percentage of the U. S. population living in one of these metropolitan areas is projected to grow to 81.3 percent by 2020. While the change in this percentage seems relatively minor, in terms of growth of numbers of people living in metro areas it is large, nearly 48 million! Over 60 percent of metropolitan residents live east of the Mississippi River. The largest of the eastern metros and the largest city in the country is New York. Including New York, 8 of the top 12 U.S. metropolitan areas are in the East. This Recreation Statistics Update covers participation in 20 nature-based outdoor tourism activities by residents of 8 major metro areas in the eastern United States. Included are Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Memphis, Miami, New York, and Washington-Baltimore. 2 We refer to the activities listed in the accompanying table as tourism activities because participation in them usually requires travel out of the city to public and private areas with developed recreation sites, wildlife, trails, lakes, streams or snow cover. The source of outdoor tourism activity participation rates is the National Survey on Recreation and the Environment (NSRE). Of the Eastern metro areas, Atlanta has had by far the largest rate of population growth since 1990 (39%), followed by Miami (21%). The growth rate for the Washington- Baltimore, Memphis, and Chicago metros ranged from 11 to 13 %. Growing more modestly were New York (8%), Boston (7%), and Detroit (5%). With the exception of