EDIT: For a more comprehensive response, I'll add the comments people have replied to this post into the main body, with credit. If you have comments about the linguistic map, please do reply here if you'd like me to include it!

I can speak for the linguistic map - partially because I just understand it better, but also because the "culture areas" concept in North American anthropology is super controversial and it would be better for an anthropologist of North America specifically to speak about it.

The first thing is that it talks about "stocks". This gives a pretty good hint that the creator is trying to do one of two things: simplify the classification scheme at the cost of accuracy (which is something most linguists nowadays try to avoid) or, much worse, propose them as actual language families. There isn't really a strict definition, but linguists generally use "stock" to refer to a hypothesis of a language family based not on the orthodox method of comparative reconstruction, but instead on the much looser mass comparison. This method, advanced by the (in)famous "lumper" Joseph Greenberg, is now considered nearly wholly discredited, and the hypotheses of "stocks" it proposes are therefore basically void.

This map isn't entirely Greenbergian, though. In fact, it's an interesting example of the compromises and amendations that a linguistic cartographer might (think s/he has to) make. Greenberg's incredibly lumpy "Keresiouan" isn't there, for example - presumably because it would look weird and disproportionate on the map to put Siouan, Iroquoian and Algonkian together. This is a good thing, because Keresiouan is seriously doubtful, but it's a good illustration of how I think this cartographer has put aesthetics above linguistics to an extent. Similarly, the map marks several languages which are generally accepted as isolates today - Kutenay (misspelled "Kulenay"), Keres, Karankawa, and Timucua - as such, rather than a member of a "stock". Again, good thing, but it seems highly likely that they did so more because these particular languages were conveniently spaced out across the map rather than for good linguistic reasons.

On the other hand, this image does list "stocks" and connections that have the same level of orthodox linguistic evidence (i.e. nearly none) that Keresiouan has. "Hokan" is just a grouping of a bunch of small languages together in a single lump "family", and linguists today do not generally accept it. "Penutian" (especially with Zuni, which is not really even a connection at all) and "Gulf", though slightly better evidenced, are similarly seriously doubtful. The relationship between Siouan and Yuchi / Uto-Aztecan (here "Aztec") and Tanoan are not yet satisfactorily proven either.

Again, this is not the worst thing in the world: all of these groupings are broadly rational (as in, they're the most plausible groupings of their size), and it's pretty clear that in California - which had incredible linguistic diversity - this is just being done for convenience. But if NatGeo wants to use this as a comprehensive linguistic map, they should make it very clear that this is the case.

So, all that said, here are my specific objections and suggestions:

Language families that are (generally believed) not:

"Penutian" (split into many different families, or simply add a nota bene. If the latter, remove Zuni)

"Hokan" (split or add n.b.)

"Gulf" (split into Muskogean, Atakapa, Natchez, and Tunica).

Aztec-Tanoan (split into Uto-Aztecan and Tanoan)

Siouan-Yuchi (split into Siouan and Yuchi)

Miscellaneous:

The name "Algonkian" here is technically wrong - since the map includes Yurok and Wiyot, it should really be termed "Algic". Algonkian / Algonquian (the latter generally preferred) is the family minus those two specific languages.

Misspelling of "Iroquois" as "Iriquois" on map.

Misspelling of "Kutenay" as "Kulenay" on legend.

u/ScallopOolong: Comanche (Uto-Aztecan, Texas and Kansas) shouldn't be represented here, since it split from Shoshone in the early 18th century, after Euro-American contact. Same for Seminole (Muskogean, Florida - spoken by a creole culture of escaped slaves and Native Americans) on the cultural map.

I've almost certainly missed others - maps like these always have a lot of information, and I don't have the time or the specific knowledge to assess every single label and border. But these are the broad strokes of what NatGeo will need to review if they want to use this map.

The attempt to place linguistic and cultural groups on a single map will always fall victim to several pitfalls. I will briefly address several major concerns here.

First, a single snapshot in time is not really the best way to understand Native American history, and those snapshots overwhelmingly bias the perspective of viewing Native American history only so far as it is important to Europeans. On the second map the caption says "as they were when Europeans first arrived", but at the most basic level the map omits important groups if we take true first contact events as the standard. First contact on the mainland likely occurred in the early 1510s with slavers operating along the Florida coast. Those slave raiders would pave the way for Ponce de Leon, and subsequent conquistadors, as they encountered large chiefdoms like the Guale, Timucua, Calusa, and Apalachee. The Seminole would emerge centuries later, after decades of cooperation and interdependence with the Spanish missions, after Carolina slavers ravaged those mission populations, and after refugees of shattered confederacies united with escaped slaves in the wilds of the Florida peninsula to form a new, powerful nation. All that wonderful, messy history is omitted with just placing the name Seminole over Florida.

The deeper issue is that first contact in Florida might mean nothing to the Mandan in North Dakota, or the Chumash on the California coast. If the map truly meant "as they were when Europeans first arrived" then we need to be explicit. Is the map a snapshot taken at some Eurocentric date, like 1491, or is it a snapshot taken at evolving times as the tentacles of contact spread inward across the continent? As the brief example of Florida shows, the timing makes a great deal of difference. For good or ill, we are so programmed to think first contact marks some pristine point in Native American history, the last natural state of an isolated people who would be transformed by events outside their control. That is not the best was to interpret the story of the continent, nor is it how many Native North American nations view their own history.

This all boils down to the largest issue with these maps: a single map may unintentionally present a stasis that doesn't reflect reality of a dynamic social landscape with groups expanding, contracting, or fission/regrouping, and it most certainly doesn't depict the complex, uneven way contact unfolded across the continent. The protohistoric in North America is a fascinating time, with populations moving all over the place. Some, like the Athabaskan migration to the southwest, were continuing with trends that started long before contact. Some, like the Pequot, were directly attacked by Europeans, their lands taken by force, with survivors forced to flee. Some, like the Huron/Wendat, were pushed out of their territory during wars with other indigenous groups, in this case the Haudenosaunee, in a war influenced by alliances and rivalries with European nations. And some, like the Osage and the Cheyenne were several dominoes away but nonetheless migrating from the shocks of contact as one group pushed against another. In the Southeast researchers call this effect a shatter zone. Like a hammer striking a vase, Europeans were confined to a small area of the Atlantic coast. However, the shock of impact, the cracks and crevices spreading out from the point of contact, spread far from the original place of injury. The downstream effects of colonialism, the slave trade, the instigated wars, and the dominoes of displacement are those fissure lines that reach into the heart of the continent far in advance of actual "white guy presence". We need maps that show this dynamic story, that assume movement and change and an independent history of a system in motion, not a static New World waiting for white guys to bump into it.

Maps like these have power, the power to reinforce or challenge our narratives, the power to shift our understanding and to open our eyes to new perspectives. I would love to see maps that show migration and change, that incorporate indigenous perspectives of their own history and homeland, that show the tendrils of contact advancing inward, and highlight complexity of a system in motion. We are, all of us, educators in some fashion. Explaining complex systems may be more challenging, but what a glorious opportunity to transform our understanding of North American history.

This in no way should be read as a condemnation of National Geographic, or any of the work you do. I am forever in your debt for opening my eyes to the wonders of history and cultures the world over. I would not be studying this material today if I didn't obsess over copies of National Geographic as a child. Thank you.

Good morning, good people! I'm the rogue NG employee who asked the questions, and just wanted to thank the community for the typically terrific, thoughtful responses. It's better feedback than I could have hoped, and provides a great jumping-off point for if/how we update and improve our resources. Thanks again!!

I was hoping to see a linguistic map that included Canada - having a map showing "pre-imperial" north America yet including one of the last borders to be drawn is definitely a problem.

The second challenge is more of a personal one - I'm a speaker of the Michif language, my nation has its genesis in the late 18th century, and we are centered in southern Manitoba and in North Dakota. We are an Aboriginal people, though mixed blood, and are consistently left out of maps like this, even when other groups that arrived after we did to many areas are included (for example the Saulteaux).

My third suggestion is that the Assiniboin grouping is also ignoring a political/linguistic reality - the Nehiyaw Pwat really means that the area marked Assiniboin was in many ways a mixed area, even in the 1700s, between the different members of that Alliance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Confederacy.

These maps always seem to make the mistake of claiming to be from one time, but actually being a mishmash of times. They also obviously ignore that these nations had actual political identities which often crossed linguistic lines, and of course they always leave my own nation out or lump us in with other groups, despite our very real existence, in the past and in the present.

The first map, the famous Sturtevant (1967) map that we all learned from in the 1970's, is what I envisioned when I initially commented, and what I will address here. The other map is just a culture area map that has a kind of rudimentary utility but withers under further scrutiny.

From my perspective in the Northwest Coast Culture Area, the use of languages, which is what the map largely reflects, does not reflect tribes or homogeneous groups or political entities and the nice neat tribal boundaries were just not real. I would further note that the data on language distribution in Northern California was collected after there had been massive disruption by contact with European settlers (primarily miners). Golla, in California Indian Languages (2011) also notes in discussion about the New River Chimariko, that at the time of contact the region was undergoing a transition to use of the Hupa language. So in addition to disclaimers about what the map reflects, there should be some qualification regarding the resolution of the map (it is a lot blurrier than one would conclude from looking at this map) and by the time a lot of this data was collected significant changes in language use were underway.

I saw this cross-posted and wrote this on the crosspost, posting here as recommended:
The language families seem fine for the parts of the continent I'm familiar with (western Prairies, Northern US Rockies) although anything this far back is going to be extremely speculative, especially since we know allied tribes with different languages would often freely move through each other's land, and that the Blackfoot expanded their territory considerably at some point a bit after this time, but we don't know exactly from where, or how fast. I'm not sure if Ojibwa territory was that large at that point, but since they did share land with the Nakoda, who knows. In general, drawing borders for people who didn't have formal borders always gives pretty fuzzy results.

Also, you misspelled "Kutenai" in the key.
EDIT: Just by the by, Ktunaxa/Kutenai tradition holds that they originally had a lot of territory east of the Rockies, which they lost in the above-mentioned Blackfoot expansion, and apparently there is evidence to support that.

Also, what makes a tribe major or minor? Why does there seem to be a border between Okanagan and itself?

For the cultural distinctions, only the ones made on the west and north coasts make any sense, in terms of diet. The others seem to be pretty randomly clustered in terms of cultural traditions, or material culture, or trade, or traditional alliances, or diet, or anything else I can possibly think of. It's a very poor map with no real justification.

I work in the southeast, so I know about that much more than elsewhere.The culture map says at the time of European contact which is defined as how? What years? The language group is more accurate and should be used for the cultures.

In Florida at least, there were a few different cultural differences at the time. The Seminole is entirely wrong; they formed later on (late 18th-19th century) as an ethnogenesis of the cultures that survived.

The Ais is correct. Timuca correct. Calusa is correct, can also call it Caloosahatchee. Tequesta is good. Apalachee in panhandle is good.

Timuca can be broken down into many dialects. Mocama is the most well-known. The regions on the language map represent chiefdoms or settlements, not dialects (which the legend does clarify, just kinda weird to have that on a language map, when the culture map is so wrong). Here's some basic information: http://dos.myflorida.com/florida-facts/florida-history/16th-century-settlements/

This is mostly a question itself: my understanding is that we have pretty solid evidence that a lot of the Siouan groups that are generally placed on maps as they are in the above, in the central and western plains, were actually located much further east by the time colonization of the Thirteen Colonies really began. Instead, these locations reflect locations of first contact, which range from mid-1650s or so in the Minnesota/Wisconsin area to I believe as late as the Lewis and Clark expedition for the more western groups. The Omaha-Ponca and Quapaw, around 1600, instead of being placed in the region of Nebraska and Arkansas respectively, wouldn't be differentiated and should be located in southern Indiana, for example. This westward movement often seems to be a result of Algonquian or Iroquoian expansion.

Rather than critiquing the details of the map - which are beyond what I can reasonably do - my question is more if we have any evidence of what the Great Plains cultural/linguistic geography looked like prior to this westward Siouan expansion.

How about the very post-contact names? I know some groups don’t care, but if you want a pre-European map, at least think about having that information available! And for some groups, they really hate these names. The Chippeweyan really should be Dënesųłiné, for example

The Algic vs. Algonquian distinction having already been mentioned, I'd just like to point out that Wiyot and Yurok are too dark a purple in any case.