Ray City, Georgia

8 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1953 and the latest in 1988. It stands in the Ray City census division. It lies in ZIP code area 31645. It stands on Batterbee Branch. The Survey maps it on the Ray City quadrangle. 956 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 190 feet above sea level.

Ray City within Berrien County

Population over time

2 figures

Ray City fell from 1,090 to 956 between 2010 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
2010	1,090
2020	956	-134 (-12%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

5 surveys from 8 printed sheets

Matched 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.

1953 USGS Waycross quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
1958 USGS Waycross quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
1978 USGS Ray City quadrangle1:24000
1979 USGS Moultrie quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
1988 USGS Waycross quadrangle1:250000

Fires near this place

443 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 443 fires within 5 miles of Ray City between 1992 and 2020, burning about 1,294 acres in total. 14 started naturally. 28 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	350
Arson/incendiarism	28
Equipment and vehicle use	21
Natural	14
Smoking	11
Misuse of fire by a minor	9
Recreation and ceremony	5
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	3
Railroad operations and maintenance	2

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
9 September 2002	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Georgia Forestry Commission	FY2003-BERRIEN-012
9 September 2002	Debris and open burning	2.2 acres	Georgia Forestry Commission	FY2003-BERRIEN-011
8 September 1997	Misuse of fire by a minor	under an acre	Georgia Forestry Commission	not named
7 September 1997	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Georgia Forestry Commission	not named
4 September 2005	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Georgia Forestry Commission	not named
4 September 2003	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Georgia Forestry Commission	not named
4 September 1995	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Georgia Forestry Commission	not named
3 September 2020	Debris and open burning	3.1 acres	Georgia Forestry Commission	FY2021BERRIEN003

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Berrien County

Storms near this place

19 since 1998

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Ray City in 19 storm reports between 1998 and 2025: 16 thunderstorm wind, 1 hail, 1 lightning, 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
April 2020	Tornado (EF0)	Ray City	$50,000	A brief tornado touched down in Ray City, with damage to trees and minor damage to structures. The tornado moved east out of Ray City and dissipated before reaching Lakeland. Straight line winds damage was observed however in Lanier County from U.S. Route 129 through parts of Lakeland to near the Clinch County line. Max winds were estimated near 80 mph.
July 2009	Thunderstorm Wind	Ray City	$50,000	A few homes were damaged by fallen trees in Ray City.
July 2010	Thunderstorm Wind	Ray City	$30,000	Several trees and power lines were blown down, including some trees up to 3 to 4 feet in diameter that fell on houses. The monetary damage figure provided is a rough estimate.
April 2020	Thunderstorm Wind	Ray City	$25,000	A tree was blown down onto a house.
April 2020	Thunderstorm Wind	Ray City	$25,000	Numerous trees were blown down, particularly across the southern portions of the county. A tree was blown onto a house on Park Street. Trees were down on Possum Creek Road, Jones Road, Allenville Road, Turtle Dove Lane, Old Mill Town Road, Highway 168, and May Road.
February 1998	Lightning	Ray City	$10,000	Lightning struck the main water pump servicing Ray City. Water service restored within 48 hours.
August 2013	Thunderstorm Wind	Ray City	$3,000	Several trees were blown down, including one over power lines.
June 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Ray City	$3,000	Several trees were blown down north of Ray City. The monetary damage figure provided is a rough estimate.
June 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Ray City	$3,000	Several trees were blown down in Ray City. The monetary damage figure provided is a rough estimate.
June 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	Ray City	$2,000	A tree was blown down onto a power line in Ray City.
April 2016	Thunderstorm Wind	Ray City	$2,000	A power line was blown down in Ray City.
July 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Ray City	$2,000	A couple of trees were blown down in southern Berrien county. The monetary damage figure provided is a rough estimate.
June 2014	Thunderstorm Wind	Ray City	$1,000	Trees were blown down around Ray City.
June 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	Ray City	-	A tree was down on Highway 64 near Ray City.
May 2024	Thunderstorm Wind	Ray City	-	A tree was blown down on Highway 37 at Fountain Road.
April 2020	Thunderstorm Wind	Ray City	-	A tree was blown down.
July 2016	Thunderstorm Wind	Ray City	-	Trees were blown down in the Ray City area.
June 2015	Thunderstorm Wind	Ray City	-	Two trees were blown down in Ray City.
May 1998	Hail	Ray City	-	Golfball sized hail reported along U.S. Highway 129 about 4 miles north of Ray City.

Every storm recorded in Berrien County

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.

Place	Distance	Sheets
New Lois	3.7 miles	8
Allenville	3.8 miles	8
Nashville	9.5 miles	8
Cottle	10.7 miles	8
Weber	11.6 miles	8
Bannockburn	16.3 miles	8
Glory	20.5 miles	8
Alapaha	21.5 miles	8

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 Ray City	An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q2346246	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 332800. 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.