Newe Sogobia encompasses approximately 60,000,000 acres of land that includes most of the western half of the state of Nevada, stretches north in Idaho, east into Utah, and extends to the Mojave Desert in California. These boundaries were delineated in the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley.

The treaty was one of the only treaties that did not cede land. Instead it guaranteed safe passage of non-Indians through the land. Over the years, the United States has violated the treaty and illegally entered Newe Sogobia. Among other facilities it has established the Nevada Nuclear Weapons Test Site, the proposed Yucca Mountain High Level Nuclear Waste Facility, Nellis Air Force Base, and various other military facilities.

In recent years, various multinational mining companies have desecrated Newe Sogobia with large open pit mines, especially gold mines, ruining the land and poisoning the water and air for people and animals. Last year, one area of Newe Sogobia, sacred to the people, was found to be the second largest gold discovery in the world. These things have made the arid Shoshone land that was once considered a waste land, to become desirable to the U.S. government and multinational corporations.