Palestine, Arkansas
14 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1940 and the latest in 1990. It stands in Prairie Township. It lies in ZIP code area 72372. The Survey maps it on the Palestine quadrangle. 506 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 210 feet above sea level.
Population over time
3 figuresPalestine fell from 741 to 506 between 2000 and 2020. These are the recorded population figures Wikidata holds for this place, reached through the Geographic Names Information System number this page is keyed on rather than by name, so they belong to this place and not to another of the same name. Most are census counts, but not all are: an early figure may be a founding or settlement estimate, and an estimate published within five years of a census is left out. The change column is computed, and is left blank where more than 20 years separate a figure from the one before it, because a gap that long is not a change between two counts.
| Year | People | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2000 | 741 | |
| 2010 | 681 | -60 (-8%) |
| 2020 | 506 | -175 (-26%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
10 surveys from 14 printed sheetsMatched by testing this settlement's coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet in the United States Geological Survey's historical collection. Each opens the scanned sheet at the Survey.
- 1940 USGS Marianna quadrangle1:62500, 2 printings
- 1948 USGS Helena quadrangle1:250000
- 1950 USGS Helena quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1955 USGS Helena quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1957 USGS Marianna quadrangle1:62500, 2 printings
- 1959 USGS Helena quadrangle1:250000
- 1960 USGS Helena quadrangle1:250000
- 1984 USGS Helena quadrangle1:100000
- 1984 USGS Palestine quadrangle1:24000
- 1990 USGS Helena quadrangle1:100000
Fires near this place
14 since 1998Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 14 fires within 5 miles of Palestine between 1998 and 2009, burning about 304 acres in total. None started naturally. 5 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
| Reported cause | Fires |
|---|---|
| Debris and open burning | 8 |
| Arson/incendiarism | 5 |
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1 |
The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.
| Date | Cause | Size | Reported by | Name on the report |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 28 September 1998 | Debris and open burning | 63 acres | Arkansas Forestry Commission | not named |
| 7 July 1998 | Arson/incendiarism | 29 acres | Arkansas Forestry Commission | not named |
| 25 July 2003 | Debris and open burning | 2.0 acres | Arkansas Forestry Commission | not named |
| 18 March 2006 | Debris and open burning | 2.0 acres | Arkansas Forestry Commission | not named |
| 14 March 2006 | Debris and open burning | 4.0 acres | Arkansas Forestry Commission | not named |
| 22 February 2000 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1.0 acres | Arkansas Forestry Commission | not named |
| 18 November 1999 | Arson/incendiarism | 18 acres | Arkansas Forestry Commission | not named |
| 5 October 2008 | Debris and open burning | 2.0 acres | Arkansas Forestry Commission | not named |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
13 since 1994Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Palestine in 13 storm reports between 1994 and 2025: 6 hail, 5 thunderstorm wind, 1 flash flood, 1 tornado. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.
| When | Event | Place named | Harm | What the report says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 1994 | Thunderstorm Wind | Palestine | $50,000 | Thunderstorm winds damaged a church. |
| February 2008 | Thunderstorm Wind | Palestine | $5,000 | Straight line winds blew a car off a road, roughly 8 miles northwest of Palestine. |
| April 1999 | Thunderstorm Wind | Palestine | $5,000 | Some power lines were knocked down. |
| August 2020 | Tornado (EF0) | Palestine | $3,000 | A tornado developed and crossed Highway 70 between Forrest City and Palestine. |
| May 2006 | Hail | Palestine | $1,000 | no account filed |
| April 2003 | Hail | Palestine | $750 | no account filed |
| May 1996 | Hail | Palestine | $10 | no account filed |
| March 2025 | Hail | Palestine | - | Half dollar sized hail in Palestine. |
| April 2020 | Thunderstorm Wind | Palestine | - | Several trees knocked down in Palestine. |
| July 2009 | Flash Flood | Palestine | - | Heavy rain produced flash flooding in Western St. Francis County. Several roads were flooded as a result. |
| June 2009 | Thunderstorm Wind | Palestine | - | Straight line winds damaged two metal buildings at the Diamond D Wrecker Service near Palestine. A few homes sustained shingle damage in the area. A few trees and power lines were knocked down in the area as well. Four power poles were knocked down. |
| April 2011 | Hail | Palestine | - | no account filed |
| May 2010 | Hail | Palestine | - | no account filed |
Nearest settlements
The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.
| Map | Place | Distance | Sheets |
|---|---|---|---|
| Longino | 1.8 miles | 16 | |
| Slonikers Mill | 2.6 miles | 12 | |
| Becks | 2.9 miles | 16 | |
| Elcana | 3.3 miles | 16 | |
| Redfern | 3.8 miles | 16 | |
| Bryanville | 4.2 miles | 16 | |
| Poplar Grove | 5.2 miles | 16 | |
| Bonair | 6.1 miles | 16 |
Elsewhere
Matched on this settlement's Geographic Names Information System number rather than its name, so it cannot be a different place of the same name in another state.
| Wikipedia article on Palestine | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q79491 | The structured record the population and elevation above come from. Public domain (CC0). |
Provenance
This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 83241. The sheet list is computed by point-in-boundary test against the United States Geological Survey's historical topographic inventory. Both are works of the United States government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.









