Yankton, South Dakota Yankton, South Dakota Yankton is a city in, and the county seat of, Yankton County, South Dakota, United States. The population was 14,454 at the 2010 census. Yankton is the principal city of the Yankton Micropolitan Statistical Area, which includes the entirety of Yankton County, and which had an estimated population of 22,662 as of July 1, 2017. Yankton was the first capital of Dakota Territory. It is named for the Yankton tribe of Nakota (Sioux) Native Americans; Yankton is derived from the Nakota word "I-hank-ton-wan" ("the end village"). Yankton is located on the Missouri River just downstream of the
Native American recognition in the United States self-identify as Indian, merely by checking the racial category, "Native American/Alaska Native". In 1990, about 1.8 million people self-identified in the census as American Indian. About 60 percent of those, or 1.14 million people, are enrolled in federally recognized tribes. People who self-identify as Indian but are not a part of a federally recognized group often wish to join a recognized tribe. The tribal government, in the absence of some legal obligation which stipulates otherwise, has final jurisdiction over who is a member of the tribe. Holly Reckord, an anthropologist who heads the BIA Branch of Acknowledgment and Recognition, discusses