Map of Hopi Tribe, Arizona in 2026

The Hopi Dictionary gives the first meaning of the word Hopi as “behaving one, one who is mannered, civilized, peaceable, polite, who adheres to the Hopi Way,” a concept deeply rooted in Hopi religion, spirituality and ethics. This map follows Hopi country from Aponi-vi out to Coal Mine Mesa and prints Third Mesa, Antelope Mesa, the Hopi Cultural Center, the Hopi Tribal Offices, the Hopi Health Care Center, the Hopi Junior Senior High School and Polacca Airport, with Adams Butte and Bell Butte in shaded relief.

The Hopi Reservation lies in Navajo County and Coconino County in northeastern Arizona, surrounded entirely by the Navajo Nation.

KNOWOL made this map in 2026 and gave it the look of an old atlas. The shaded relief of Adams Butte, Antelope Mesa and Bell Butte comes from United States Geological Survey elevation data, and the streets were drawn from Census Bureau files. In Hopi the reservation is Hopitutskwa, home of the Hopi and Arizona Tewa people. It covers 2,531.773 square miles, and 7,791 people lived here at the 2020 census. The Hopi Tribe ratified its constitution on October 24, 1936, and it keeps the traditional powers and authority of the Hopi villages.

The Hopi Way

To be Hopi is to strive toward that meaning, which involves total reverence for all things, peace with them, and life lived by the instructions of Maasaw, the Creator or Caretaker of Earth. The Hopi observe their religious ceremonies for the benefit of the entire world. They understand their land to be sacred and see themselves as caretakers of the land they inherited from their ancestors, and they’re thought to descend from the Hisatsinom, the Ancestral Pueblo people. The Hopi organize themselves into matrilineal clans that reach across all the villages, and children are born into their mother’s clan. On a baby’s 20th day, the women of the father’s clan gather, each bringing a name and a gift, and when many relatives come, a child can be given more than 40 names.

The villages sit on three mesas. Old Oraibi, Orayvi to its people, was founded by about 1100 on Third Mesa and is one of the oldest continuously inhabited settlements in the United States; it’s a National Historic Landmark, and its residents ask that no photographs be taken. Third Mesa also holds Hotevilla, Bacavi, Moencopi and Kykotsmovi Village, Kiqötsmovi, “mound of ruined houses,” founded near a spring at the base of the mesa. Kykotsmovi is the seat of the Hopi tribal government. First Mesa holds Walpi, “place of the notch,” with Sichomovi and Hano, the Tewa village. The Tewa people came west from northern New Mexico to Hopi lands about 1702, after the Pueblo Revolt, for protection from the Spanish. The Hopi joined that revolt of 1680, and after 1700 the Spanish never re-established a presence in Hopi country.

Antelope Mesa and the artists

On Antelope Mesa stand the ruins of Awatovi, founded sometime after 1300, which grew into the largest and most important village in the Hopi area and the largest on Antelope Mesa. It was the first Hopi village the Spanish visited, in 1540, and it was never lived in again after 1700. In the 1930s the Hopi painter Fred Kabotie copied the ancient murals found there for Harvard’s Peabody Museum, and the site became a National Historic Landmark in 1964. Kabotie, whose Hopi name Naqavoy’ma means “Day After Day,” was born at Songo’opavi on Second Mesa. As a boy he drew katsinam with bits of coal and earth pigments on the rocks near home, and he grew into a celebrated painter, silversmith and teacher. He wanted to bring Hopi culture and art back to the reservation, and in 1965 he began planning the Hopi Cultural Center on Second Mesa. It was dedicated on June 26, 1971, and it has a museum, a gift shop of work by Hopi artisans, lodging and a restaurant serving Hopi food.

The potter Nampeyo, Hopi-Tewa, was born on First Mesa at Hano. She worked with ancient methods of making and firing pottery and drew on designs from “Old Hopi” pottery and the shards of the 15th-century Sikyátki ruins on First Mesa. Her work is in museums in the United States and Europe, and in 2010 one of her pots sold for $350,000, a world record for Southwest American Indian pottery. Polacca, below First Mesa, is named for her brother Tom Polacca, who spoke Hopi, Tewa, Zuni, Spanish and English and was the first businessman on the reservation. The Hopi Health Care Center in Polacca provides emergency care around the clock, and the Hopi Tribe owns Polacca Airport, 3.5 miles southwest of the village. The Hopi jeweler Charles Loloma often parked his own plane there.

The runners

The Hopi Junior Senior High School opened in Keams Canyon on September 2, 1986, with 550 students, the Hopi community’s first high school on the reservation. Running is deeply rooted in Hopi tradition, as a way to carry messages and to bless the reservation with rain, and the Hopi Bruins boys won 27 straight state cross country championships, from 1990 to 2016, a national record according to the National Federation of State High School Associations. The girls have won 22 state titles. Lewis Tewanima, a Hopi runner, won the silver medal in the 10,000 meters at the 1912 Olympics, the best U.S. result in that race until Billy Mills won gold in 1964. Every year on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend, the Louis Tewanima Footrace starts and finishes on top of Second Mesa.

This map of the Hopi Tribe is a good addition to an office, library or den, and it can help teach children the geography and history of the area. It’s made for anyone who calls Hopi Tribe home, from Aponi-vi out to Coal Mine Mesa, and KNOWOL created it in 2026 to show the land as it looks today. Zoom in on the preview above to explore the details, then click here to get your copy of the Hopi Tribe map.

Sources

• Hopi, Wikipedia
• Hopi Reservation, Wikipedia
• Oraibi, Arizona, Wikipedia
• Kykotsmovi Village, Arizona, Wikipedia
• Walpi, Arizona, Wikipedia
• Awatovi Ruins, Wikipedia
• Fred Kabotie, Wikipedia
• Hopi Cultural Center, Wikipedia
• Nampeyo, Wikipedia
• Polacca, Arizona, Wikipedia
• Polacca Airport, Wikipedia
• Hopi Junior/Senior High School, Wikipedia
• Lewis Tewanima, Wikipedia