The Department of the Interior (Department) is responsible for the stewardship and management of public lands. However, there are many geographic features throughout the Nation that bear names which are considered derogatory.
On November 19, 2021, Secretary of the Interior Haaland signed Secretary’s Order (S.O.) 3404, declaring “squaw” (henceforth written as sq___) as a derogatory term and establishing the Derogatory Geographic Names Task Force (Task Force). The Task Force will review and select replacement names for the 665 geographic features with the term sq___ to submit to the Board on Geographic Names (BGN) for action.

To inform the Task Force’s recommendations to the BGN, you are invited to participate in the following consultation sessions to provide comments on the list and to provide your recommendations for candidate names to be considered along with the initial list.

March 21, 2022 12:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. Mountain Time
Mountain Time Zone Tribes
Register in advance for this meeting

March 22, 2022 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. Pacific Time
Pacific & Alaska Time Zone Tribes
Register in advance for this meeting

March 23, 2022 1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time
Eastern & Central Time Zone Tribes
Register in advance for this meeting

In addition to joining one of the Tribal Consultation sessions listed above, you may submit written comments to taskforce_consultation@ios.doi.gov. Written comments should include the Feature ID (FID) of the feature(s) of interest when submitting your comment. The FID for each feature is located in Column B of the list and must be received by 11:59 PM ET on
April 24, 2022, to ensure timely consideration. You may download the list of candidate names at https://www.usgs.gov/us-board-on-geographic-names/so3404-candidate-names-list.

If you have any questions, please contact feel free to contact Joseph Younkle at (202) 853-4345 or joseph_younkle@ios.doi.gov.