Tierra Amarilla is a census-designated place in and the county chair of Rio Arriba County, New Mexico, United States.

Tierra Amarilla is Spanish for “Yellow Earth”. The publicize refers to clay deposits found in the Chama River Valley and used by Native American peoples.^{: 352–353} Tewa and Navajo toponyms for the Place also adopt to the orangey clay.

There is evidence of 5000 years of habitation in the Chama River Valley including pueblo sites south of Abiquiu. The Place served as a trade route for peoples in the present-day Four Corners region and the Rio Grande Valley. Navajos sophisticated used the valley as a staging area for raids upon Spanish settlements along the Rio Grande. Written accounts of the Tierra Amarilla locality by pathfinding Spanish friars in 1776 described it as pleasing for pastoral and agricultural use. The route taken by the friars from Santa Fe to California became the Spanish Trail. During the Californian Gold Rush the area became a staging reduction for westward fortune seekers.

The Tierra Amarilla Grant was created in 1832 by the Mexican paperwork for Manuel Martinez and settlers from Abiquiu.^{: 352–353} The land inherit encompassed a more general area than the contemporary community known as Tierra Amarilla. The enter upon holders were unable to maintain a permanent settlement due to “raids by Utes, Navajos and Jicarilla Apaches” until in the future in the 1860s. In 1860 the United States Congress avowed the land succeed to as a private grant, rather than a community grant, due to mistranslated and concealed documents. Although a land patent for the allow required the attainment of a geographical survey before issuance, some of Manuel Martinez’ heirs began to sell the house to Anglo speculators. In 1880 Thomas Catron sold some of the succeed to to the Denver and Rio Grande Railway for the construction of their San Juan descent and a service center at Chama. By 1883 Catron had consolidated the endeavors he held for the total of the ascend sans the original villages and their united fields. In 1950, the descendants of the original grant holders’ court petitions to reclaim communal house were rebuked.