Ionia, Iowa
7 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1954 and the latest in 1985. It stands in Chickasaw Township. It lies in ZIP code area 50645. The Survey maps it on the Ionia quadrangle. 226 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,148 feet above sea level.
Population over time
2 figuresIonia fell from 291 to 226 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 | 291 | |
| 2020 | 226 | -65 (-22%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
5 surveys from 7 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.
- 1954 USGS Mason City quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1957 USGS Mason City quadrangle1:250000
- 1958 USGS Mason City quadrangle1:250000
- 1972 USGS Ionia quadrangle1:24000
- 1985 USGS Charles City quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
Fires near this place
23 since 2008Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 23 fires within 5 miles of Ionia between 2008 and 2020, burning about 604 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 |
|---|---|
| Debris and open burning | 17 |
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 6 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 September 2020 | Debris and open burning | 5.0 acres | Iowa Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 23 May 2015 | Debris and open burning | 28 acres | Iowa Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 2 May 2020 | Debris and open burning | 3.0 acres | Iowa Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 2 May 2020 | Debris and open burning | 5.0 acres | Iowa Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 7 April 2014 | Debris and open burning | 10 acres | Iowa Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 4 April 2010 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 45 acres | Iowa Department of Natural Resources | 1950 BEAMOUNT AVE, IOWA |
| 3 April 2019 | Debris and open burning | 50 acres | Iowa Department of Natural Resources | not named |
| 23 April 2018 | Debris and open burning | under an acre | Iowa Department of Natural Resources | not named |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Mines and quarries near this place
6 within 5 milesRegional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 6 workings within 5 miles of Ionia: 5 past producers, 1 producer. 1 still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Stone, Crushed/Broken. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
| Where | Site | Commodity | Status | Recorded |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Biglow Quarry | Stone, Crushed/Broken | Past Producer | ||
| Boevers Pit | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Past Producer | ||
| Boise Quarry | Stone, Crushed/Broken | Producer | ||
| Chickasaw Quarry | Stone, Crushed/Broken | Past Producer | ||
| Unknown | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Past Producer | ||
| Unknown | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Past Producer |
Storms near this place
23 since 1995Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Ionia in 23 storm reports between 1995 and 2024: 12 hail, 6 thunderstorm wind, 2 tornado, 2 heavy rain. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 1996 | Hail | Ionia | $75,000 | no account filed |
| August 2021 | Lightning | Ionia | $10,000 | Lightning struck a home in Ionia. |
| May 1995 | Hail | Ionia | $2,000 | An intense storm system moved out of the southwest United States northeast across the plains. The center of the surface low tracked across far northwest Iowa into southern Minnesota by the afternoon of the 14th. The dry slot moved north ahead of the low and had punched into Iowa by sunrise on the 13th. The combination of cooling aloft and the afternoon heating destabilized the atmosphere. Thunderstorms erupted during the afternoon along the nose of the dry slot from northwest Iowa across the eastern counties. Afternoon CAPE values were in the 3500 J-kg-1 range with helicity between 400-650 m2-s-2 around the time the storms developed. The main severe event with these storms was hail. There were numerous reports of hail in the one to two inch diameter range. This was especially true over the northern Iowa counties closer to the upper level low pressure system. Golf ball-size hail caused considerable damage to the greens at a golf course in Dows. Most of the hail over the eastern counties was around an inch or less in diameter. Just about all of the storms produced hail of at least pea- to marble-size, along with winds gusts in the 40 to 50 mph range. There was one funnel cloud reported over northern Iowa. The funnel cloud occurred west of Mason City, in Cerro Gordo County. |
| May 2004 | Hail | Ionia | $1,250 | no account filed |
| May 2004 | Hail | Ionia | $750 | no account filed |
| June 2016 | Thunderstorm Wind | Ionia | $500 | Large tree branches were blown down along U.S. Highway 18 west of New Hampton. |
| June 2024 | Thunderstorm Wind | Ionia | - | A mesonet station measured a peak wind gust from the south-southwest at 68 mph. |
| December 2021 | Thunderstorm Wind | Ionia | - | A 63 mph wind gust was measured by a mesonet sensor north of Ionia. |
| June 2020 | Heavy Rain | Ionia | - | Just west of Ionia, 3.03 inches of rain fell. |
| May 2017 | Hail | Ionia | - | Quarter sized hail fell near Ionia. |
| July 2017 | Heavy Rain | Ionia | - | In Ionia, 9.30 inches of rain fell. |
| May 2013 | Thunderstorm Wind | Ionia | - | The automated mesonet observing equipment near Ionia measured a wind gust of 62 mph. |
| August 2010 | Thunderstorm Wind | Ionia | - | The road weather information system along U.S. Highway 18 near New Hampton recorded a wind gust of 59 mph. |
| June 2010 | Hail | Ionia | - | no account filed |
| July 2006 | Thunderstorm Wind | Ionia | - | no account filed |
| April 2002 | Hail | Ionia | - | no account filed |
| April 2002 | Hail | Ionia | - | no account filed |
| April 2002 | Hail | Ionia | - | no account filed |
| May 2002 | Tornado (F0) | Ionia | - | no account filed |
| April 2002 | Hail | Ionia | - | no account filed |
| April 2002 | Hail | Ionia | - | no account filed |
| June 2002 | Tornado (F0) | Ionia | - | no account filed |
| July 2000 | Hail | Ionia | - | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chickasaw | 2.1 miles | 7 | |
| Bassett | 3.7 miles | 7 | |
| Bradford | 5.4 miles | 9 | |
| North Washington | 6.1 miles | 7 | |
| Republic | 6.5 miles | 9 | |
| Nashua | 7.0 miles | 9 | |
| New Hampton | 7.5 miles | 7 | |
| Devon | 7.9 miles | 7 |
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 Ionia | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q1931656 | 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 458609. 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.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
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.




