The Leech Lake Reservation (Gaa-zagaskwaajimekaag in the Ojibwe language) is an Indian reservation located in the north-central Minnesota counties of Cass, Itasca, Beltrami, and Hubbard. The reservation forms the land base for the federally recognized Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, one of six bands comprising the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, organized in 1934. The Leech Lake Reservation has the second highest population of any reservation in Minnesota with White Earth Nation being the largest Minnesota Ojibwe tribe, Leech Lake Nation has a resident population of 11,388 indicated by the 2020 census. History The Leech Lake Reservation was not established in a single act, but came about as the cumulative result of treaties, executive orders, and legislation spanning many decades. The core areas of the reservation were established by the 1855 treaty of Washington, which formed three smaller reservations for the Pillager Band of Chippewa Indians at Leech Lake, Cass Lake, and Lake Winnibigoshish. These reservations were reshaped and consolidated by new treaties in 1864 and 1867, when the United States sought with little success to concentrate Ojibwes from other reservations together at a single location. The reservation was further modified by several executive orders in the 1870s, one of which created the White Oak Point reservation of the Mississippi Band. Under the Dawes Act of 1887 and the Nelson Act of 1889, the United States allotted tribal land on the Ojibwe reservations into private parcels. Some parcels were held by individual tribal members, but much of the reservation was alienated into the ownership of timber companies and white settlers. In addition, the United States established what became the Chippewa National Forest in the early twentieth century on the remaining unallotted tribal land. As a result, by 1934, less than 5% of the reservation was still in Ojibwe ownership. Following the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, the present "Greater" Leech Lake Indian Reservation was formed from the merger of the Leech Lake, Cass Lake, and Lake Winnibigoshish reservations of the Pillager Band, the Chippewa Indian Reservation of the Lake Superior Band, and the White Oak Point reservation of the Mississippi Band. A minimal percentage of reservation land is owned by citizens of the Band; additionally, most of the reservation remains within the Chippewa National Forest, making settlement expansion extremely difficult. Geography According to the United States Census Bureau, the Leech Lake Reservation has a total area of , of which is land