Chippewa (tribe)

Ojibwe (Chippewa)

Distribution of Ojibwe-speaking people
Total population
170,742 in United States (2010)
Regions with significant populations
Canada (Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba) United States (Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota)
Languages
English, Ojibwe, French
Religion
Midewiwin, Catholicism, Methodism
Related ethnic groups
Odawa, Potawatomi, Oji-Cree, and other Algonquian peoples

The Ojibwe, Ojibwa, or Chippewa are an Anishinaabeg group of indigenous peoples in North America. They live in Canada and the United States and are one of the largest Indigenous ethnic groups north of the Rio Grande. In Canada, they are the second-largest First Nations population, surpassed only by the Cree. In the United States, they have the fourth-largest population among Native American tribes, surpassed only by the Navajo, Cherokee, and Lakota-Dakota-Nakota people.

The Ojibwe people traditionally have spoken the Ojibwe language, a branch of the Algonquian language family. They are part of the Council of Three Fires and the Anishinaabeg, which include the Algonquin, Nipissing, Oji-Cree, Odawa and the Potawatomi.

The majority of the Ojibwe people live in Canada. There are 77,940 mainline Ojibwe; 76,760 Saulteaux and 8,770 Mississaugas, organized in 125 bands, and living from western Quebec to eastern British Columbia. As of 2010, Ojibwe in the US census population is 170,742.

Ojibwe are known for their birch bark canoes, birch bark scrolls, mining and trade in copper, and cultivation of wild rice. Their Midewiwin Society is well respected as the keeper of detailed and complex scrolls of events, oral history, songs, maps, memories, stories, geometry, and mathematics.