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Defiance, Iowa

8 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1954 and the latest in 1980. It stands in Union Township. It lies in ZIP code area 51527. The Survey maps it on the Defiance quadrangle. 245 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,276 feet above sea level.

Defiance within Shelby County

On record in Defiance

Buildings and businesses the archive holds for this place. Each opens its own page, with the source record it came from.

On the National Register 1 record

Population over time

2 figures

Defiance fell from 284 to 245 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.

YearPeople Change
2010284
2020245-39 (-14%)

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.

Fires near this place

10 since 2007

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 10 fires within 5 miles of Defiance between 2007 and 2020, burning about 21 acres in total. None started naturally. None was 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
Missing data/not specified/undetermined8
Debris and open burning2

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

DateCause SizeReported by Name on the report
17 September 2007Missing data/not specified/undetermined1.0 acresIowa Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
30 June 2007Missing data/not specified/undetermined1.0 acresIowa Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
29 June 2007Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreIowa Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
25 June 2020Debris and open burning9.0 acresIowa Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
20 June 2007Missing data/not specified/undetermined1.0 acresIowa Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
20 June 2007Missing data/not specified/undetermined2.0 acresIowa Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
17 April 2019Debris and open burning2.5 acresIowa Department of Natural Resourcesnot named
26 March 2007Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreIowa Department of Natural Resourcesnot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Shelby County

Storms near this place

21 since 1997

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Defiance in 21 storm reports between 1997 and 2025: 13 hail, 4 thunderstorm wind, 4 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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
May 1998Thunderstorm WindDefiance$45,000Shed and hog house destroyed.
August 2025Thunderstorm WindDefiance-Law enforcement report of a barn blown down and damage to trees. Winds gusted to an estimated 90-100 mph.
April 2024Tornado (EF1)Defiance-This tornado touched down less than a mile southeast of Defiance, Iowa just north of the Linden Road and Knotty Pine Road Intersection. Here, a roof was blown off a barn and several tree trunks in the area were snapped. The tornado moved to the northeast, skirting the town of Defiance by less than a mile to the east. A home at the intersection of Linden Road and 2300th Street received minor roof damage and had its car garage completely destroyed. This was the worst damage from this tornado in Shelby County, warranting an EF-1 rating with max wind speeds estimated at 105 miles per hour. Another large barn at the intersection of Street F16 and Mulberry Road had large sections of its roof damaged. At 1753 CST, the tornado crossed into Crawford County half a mile west of 300th Street. At this point in time, EF-1 damage was still being done with several tree trunks being snapped with the passage of the tornado. The peak width achieved by this tornado in Shelby County was 300 yards, with an average width of 200 yards. This tornado continued into Crawford County and produced additional EF-0 and EF-1 damage until it dissipated 6 miles north-northeast of Manilla, Iowa.
July 2018Thunderstorm WindDefiance-A large tree branch was blown down onto power lines, which caused power to go out for several hours.
March 2011Tornado (EF0)Defiance-A storm chaser caught a rope tornado on video southwest of Defiance. The narrow and weak tornado apparently caused no damage as it remained in an open field and was from the same supercell that spawned a larger tornado to the southwest in Harrison county a little earlier.
May 2011HailDefiance-Along Highway 59 south of town.
September 2010HailDefiance-The hail was mostly nickel-size, but a few stones were as big as quarters.
June 2009Thunderstorm WindDefiance-Thunderstorm winds estimated at least at 60 to 70 mph by a spotter flattened crops in the area.
June 2008Tornado (EF0)Defiance-An apparent tornado downed 30 to 40 trees and damaged a farm outbuilding 4 miles south of Defiance.
June 2008Tornado (EF0)Defiance-A tornado touched down briefly northwest of Defiance. The tornado caused mainly just tree damage.
April 2017HailDefiance-no account filed
June 2013HailDefiance-no account filed
June 2008HailDefiance-no account filed
April 2008HailDefiance-no account filed
August 2007HailDefiance-no account filed
May 2005HailDefiance-no account filed
November 2005HailDefiance-no account filed
April 2003HailDefiance-no account filed
April 2003HailDefiance-no account filed
July 1999HailDefiance-no account filed
July 1997HailDefiance-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Shelby 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.

Map PlaceDistance Sheets
Earling5.2 miles8
Irwin7.6 miles8
Westphalia7.7 miles8
Kirkman7.8 miles8
Panama9.6 miles8
Manteno10.3 miles8
Botna11.4 miles8
Harlan11.8 miles8

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 DefianceAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q1922681The 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 455869. 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.