Pala Indian Reservation

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The Pala Indian Reservation is located in northern San Diego County, California, east of the community of Fallbrook, and has been assigned feature ID 272502. Historic variant names used to describe the area include Mission Indian Reservation and Mission Indian Reserve. Coordinates on the Pala quadrangle are given as 33°21′15″N, 117°00′05″W. The reservation has a land area of 52.163 km² (20.140 sq mi) and reported an official resident population of 1,573 persons in the 2000 census, about 44 percent of whom were of solely Native American heritage.

The reservation occupies parts of four 7.5 minute topographic maps: Boucher Hill, California, Pala, California, Pechanga, California, and Vail Lake, California. The area consists of acreage in and around Pala, California. According to a list of California tribal entities on Senator Barbara Boxer's web site, the Pala tribal areas are home to Cupeno and Luiseo language groups. The Cupeno language is sometimes written with a guttural stop (Cupe'o) or with the space dropped (Cupeo).

The tribe is officially called the Pala Band of Mission Indians and has about 1,000 members. It is a federally recognized Indian tribe. It consists of Cupeno and Luiseno people. The Cupeno people were forcibly removed to Pala in 1901 from their ancestral homeland, called Kupa, on what is now called Warner's Ranch east of Pala. This event is referred to by the tribe as the "Cupeno Trail of Tears."

Traditionally a modest and sometimes poor tribe, the Pala Band now has one of the largest and most successful casinos and resort hotels in Southern California, the Pala Casino, and uses the proceeds from the gaming and hospitality enterprises for important social services, education and infrastructure improvements to the reservation.

Another major tribal group, the Pauma Band of Mission Indians (Luiseo) are to the east and south along State Route 76.