Cosmos, Minnesota
9 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1953 and the latest in 1986. It stands in Cosmos Township. It lies in ZIP code area 56228. The Survey maps it on the Cosmos quadrangle. 507 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,112 feet above sea level.
Population over time
2 figuresCosmos grew from 473 to 507 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 | 473 | |
| 2020 | 507 | +34 (+7%) |
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
- 1967 USGS Cosmos quadrangle1:24000
- 1967 USGS New Ulm quadrangle1:250000
- 1986 USGS Glencoe 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 Cosmos in 2015, burning about 40 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/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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 April 2015 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 40 acres | Litchfield Wetland Management District | BROOKFIELD WF |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
28 since 1993Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Cosmos in 28 storm reports between 1993 and 2025: 15 hail, 10 thunderstorm wind, 1 funnel cloud, 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 2003 | Thunderstorm Wind | Cosmos | $500,000 | Numerous trees down in a wide swath that originated in Kandiyohi County and extended into Meeker, Renville and McLeod Counties. Sheds and outbuildings were blown over across an approximate area of 40 to 50 square miles. Several grain bins were damaged, and the roof of the Cedar Mills liquor store was removed. The damage survey revealed that winds were from the north-northwest. |
| June 2012 | Thunderstorm Wind | Cosmos | $50,000 | A line of severe straight-line winds caused numerous large trees to snap off, and power poles to bend over around Cosmos. |
| July 2011 | Thunderstorm Wind | Cosmos | $50,000 | Numerous trees and power lines were blown down from near Cosmos, northeast of Cosmos where a farm was damaged. |
| June 2025 | Thunderstorm Wind | Cosmos | - | Thunderstorm winds estimated at 60 mph downed powerlines 4 miles north of Cosmos. |
| July 2025 | Thunderstorm Wind | Cosmos | - | Tree down in Cosmos. |
| July 2016 | Hail | Cosmos | - | Several observers and trained spotters reported hail up to the size of hen eggs around Cosmos. |
| August 2016 | Heavy Rain | Cosmos | - | A trained spotter measured 5.48 inches of rain in Cosmos. |
| July 2006 | Thunderstorm Wind | Cosmos | - | Tree down. |
| July 2006 | Thunderstorm Wind | Cosmos | - | Large tree down. |
| June 2005 | Thunderstorm Wind | Cosmos | - | Numerous trees were downed. |
| May 2000 | Tornado (F0) | Cosmos | - | Barn toppled. |
| July 1999 | Thunderstorm Wind | Cosmos | - | Estimated winds. Numerous powerlines down. |
| June 1998 | Hail | Cosmos | - | Hailed for 10 minutes. |
| June 1997 | Thunderstorm Wind | Cosmos | - | Trees down. Estimated windspeed. |
| June 1997 | Hail | Cosmos | - | 5000 acres with varying degrees of crop damage. Some soybean fields a total loss. |
| June 1997 | Hail | Cosmos | - | Some crop damage. |
| June 1997 | Hail | Cosmos | - | 5 inches of rain also reported. |
| August 2024 | Hail | Cosmos | - | no account filed |
| June 2011 | Hail | Cosmos | - | no account filed |
| July 2011 | Hail | Cosmos | - | no account filed |
| September 2005 | Hail | Cosmos | - | no account filed |
| July 2003 | Hail | Cosmos | - | no account filed |
| June 2002 | Hail | Cosmos | - | no account filed |
| June 1998 | Funnel Cloud | Cosmos | - | no account filed |
| July 1997 | Hail | Cosmos | - | no account filed |
| July 1997 | Hail | Cosmos | - | no account filed |
| June 1997 | Hail | Cosmos | - | no account filed |
| September 1993 | Hail | Cosmos | - | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Corvuso | 4.9 miles | 9 | |
| Rosendale | 7.2 miles | 8 | |
| Strout | 8.4 miles | 10 | |
| Cedar Mills | 9.2 miles | 9 | |
| Beckville | 10.3 miles | 10 | |
| Acton | 10.4 miles | 8 | |
| Greenleaf | 11.3 miles | 11 | |
| Grove City | 14.8 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 Cosmos | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q766219 | 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 641518. 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.





