Clarkfield, Minnesota
9 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1953 and the latest in 1986. It stands in Clarkfield City. It lies in ZIP code area 56223. The Survey maps it on the Clarkfield quadrangle. 852 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,089 feet above sea level.
On record in Clarkfield
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
- Swede Prairie Progressive Farmers' Clublisted 1986
Population over time
2 figuresClarkfield fell from 863 to 852 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 | 863 | |
| 2020 | 852 | -11 (-1%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
6 surveys from 9 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.
- 1953 USGS New Ulm quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
- 1957 USGS New Ulm quadrangle1:250000
- 1958 USGS New Ulm quadrangle1:250000
- 1965 USGS Clarkfield quadrangle1:24000
- 1967 USGS New Ulm quadrangle1:250000
- 1986 USGS Montevideo quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
Fires near this place
1 since 2015Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 1 fire within 5 miles of Clarkfield in 2015, burning about 9 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 | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 April 2015 | Debris and open burning | 9.0 acres | Minnesota Department of Natural Resources | not named |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
27 since 1997Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Clarkfield in 27 storm reports between 1997 and 2025: 15 hail, 8 thunderstorm wind, 2 tornado, 1 lightning. 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 2002 | Tornado (F1) | Clarkfield | $50,000 | Tornado started in Lac Qui Parle County and ended in Yellow Medicine County. It destroyed one third of a turkey barn south of Clarkfield. |
| August 2025 | Thunderstorm Wind | Clarkfield | - | Thunderstorm wind gusts estimated at 58 mph snapped a large tree off a weeping willow east of Clarkfield. |
| June 2024 | Hail | Clarkfield | - | The hail stone was photographed by a trained spotter. |
| May 2022 | Hail | Clarkfield | - | There was a social media picture of 3 inch hail. |
| August 2020 | Thunderstorm Wind | Clarkfield | - | Several trees were blown down between Clarkfield to Hazel Run. Crop damage was also noted throughout the county. |
| June 2007 | Hail | Clarkfield | - | Hail occurred along Highway 67. |
| July 2006 | Heavy Rain | Clarkfield | - | Four and one tenth inches of rain fell at a farm in Stony Run township. |
| May 2004 | Thunderstorm Wind | Clarkfield | - | A small shed was destroyed. |
| June 2002 | Thunderstorm Wind | Clarkfield | - | Few trees down. Mobile construction office tipped over. |
| August 2002 | Thunderstorm Wind | Clarkfield | - | Power pole snapped in half. |
| June 2001 | Tornado (F0) | Clarkfield | - | Tornado touched down in open field. No damage reported. |
| May 2000 | Hail | Clarkfield | - | Home windows broken, water left standing in fields. |
| May 2000 | Thunderstorm Wind | Clarkfield | - | Estimated winds. Damage survey indicated damage to numerous barns, sheds, power lines, and trees. Downburst swath was approximately 5 miles wide and 7 miles long. |
| May 2000 | Hail | Clarkfield | - | Wind driven hail produced major damage to numerous houses and other property. |
| June 1998 | Hail | Clarkfield | - | Hailed for 10 minutes. |
| July 1997 | Lightning | Clarkfield | - | Barn struck by lightning. |
| October 1997 | Thunderstorm Wind | Clarkfield | - | Trees blown down. Estimated windspeed. |
| May 2022 | Hail | Clarkfield | - | no account filed |
| July 2017 | Hail | Clarkfield | - | no account filed |
| July 2017 | Hail | Clarkfield | - | no account filed |
| July 2006 | Hail | Clarkfield | - | no account filed |
| June 2005 | Hail | Clarkfield | - | no account filed |
| May 2004 | Hail | Clarkfield | - | no account filed |
| June 2002 | Hail | Clarkfield | - | no account filed |
| May 2000 | Hail | Clarkfield | - | no account filed |
| September 1998 | Hail | Clarkfield | - | no account filed |
| July 1998 | Thunderstorm Wind | Clarkfield | - | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spring Creek | 5.4 miles | 9 | |
| Hazel Run | 5.6 miles | 9 | |
| Normania | 9.9 miles | 9 | |
| Hanley Falls | 12.0 miles | 10 | |
| Lorne | 12.8 miles | 10 | |
| Saint Leo | 13.9 miles | 8 | |
| Valley Courts | 13.9 miles | 9 | |
| Granite Falls | 14.0 miles | 9 |
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 Clarkfield | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q2207409 | 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 641251. 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.





