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Hanska, Minnesota

9 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1953 and the latest in 1991. It stands in Hanska City. It lies in ZIP code area 56041. The Survey maps it on the Hanska quadrangle. 382 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,017 feet above sea level.

Hanska within Brown County

On record in Hanska

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 4 records

Population over time

2 figures

Hanska fell from 402 to 382 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
2010402
2020382-20 (-5%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

7 surveys from 9 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.

In the county-history sources

394 words on this township

History of Brown County, Minnesota: Its People, Industries and Institutions (Volume 1), published 1916 names this settlement in its chapter on Hanska City. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

December 3, 1904, will long be remembered in the village of Hanska, for on that day a sweeping fire destroyed much of the village, including the main business portion. The heaviest losses were sustained by Messrs. Nelson, Grothe, Kjorlaug & Company, J. H. Haemze, the latter owning the printing plant of the Herald office. The total loss in the village was about twenty-five thousand dollars.

Passage source: History of Brown County, Minnesota: Its People, Industries and Institutions (Volume 1), published 1916.

In the month of May, 1916, the business interests of Hanska were in the hands of the following men: Autogarage and dealers - Alex. C. Eckle, Hanska Auto Company; banks, Security and State Banks; barber - Theo. Greenholz; blacksmiths - Andrew Johnson; creameries - Hanska and Linden, and the Linden and Cottonwood; drugs, John A. Ringnell ; elevators - New Ulm Roller Mill

Passage source: History of Brown County, Minnesota: Its People, Industries and Institutions (Volume 1), published 1916.

The town hall, known as Liberal Union Hall, is a brick structure one story in height, erected by public subscription, both from the village and country. In this is held all public meetings and the library is also here under the charge of Reverend Norman. It was built in 1914-15.

Passage source: History of Brown County, Minnesota: Its People, Industries and Institutions (Volume 1), published 1916.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Hanska City - it names this place 4 more 4 times.

Storms near this place

20 since 2002

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Hanska in 20 storm reports between 2002 and 2026: 9 hail, 8 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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
June 2019HailHanska$30,000A fire department spotter reported hail as large as two inches fell for around 15 minutes at Lake Hanska County Park. Nearby, Prairie Grounds Campground was also hit, with one camper totaled and another camper had hail punch holes through its plastic roof vents. A pontoon was also significantly damaged. Some crops in the area were destroyed.
September 2021Thunderstorm WindHanska$5,000An outbuilding was blown down near Hanska. A couple wind sensors near the area had a peak wind gust of 45 mph near Hanska, and 53 mph near Madelia.
May 2022Thunderstorm WindHanska$3,000A roof was torn off a farm outbuilding near Hanska.
June 2024Heavy RainHanska-A total of 3 to 4 inches of rain fell from multiple rounds of thunderstorms. CoCoRaHS observers measured 3.81 inches near Hanska.
December 2021Thunderstorm WindHanska-A local mesonet weather station measured a wind gusts of 51 knots.
August 2021Thunderstorm WindHanska-Several trees and large branches were broken. A few hundred acres of corn were flattened at County Road 20 and 130th Avenue. An adjacent short damage path was determined to have been associated with a misocyclone, based on the damage pattern, Sentinel satellite imagery, and radar. It was not possible to correlate the crop damage with any radar circulation.
June 2015Thunderstorm WindHanska-Two large trees and several large tree branches were blown down in the southwest part of Hanska. Crops were also damaged in parts of Lake Hanska Township. Power was out in Hanska for 4 hours.
May 2014Tornado (EF0)Hanska-A tornado touched down in the extreme northeastern corner of Watonwan County before crossing the extreme southeast corner of Brown County. It continued into Blue Earth County. During its time crossing Brown County, it crossed open fields. The tornado was caught on video by a storm chaser when it was in Blue Earth County.
May 2012HailHanska-Several spotters and the emergency manager reported a swath of hail stones from near the Watonwan, Brown county line, northeast to the Brown, Blue Earth county line. The largest hail stones were 1.25 inches in diameter.
May 2012HailHanska-Quarter size hail was observed for a few minutes north of Hanska, Minnesota.
June 2005Funnel CloudHanska-A funnel cloud was reported via HAM radio about 2 miles northeast of Godahl near the intersection of County Road 4 and 132.
April 2004Thunderstorm WindHanska-Siding was ripped off a church tower. The time was estimated.
June 2003Thunderstorm WindHanska-Several trees down.
August 2002Thunderstorm WindHanska-Several trees down, including one on car. Garage door blown in.
April 2026HailHanska-no account filed
April 2026HailHanska-no account filed
April 2026HailHanska-no account filed
June 2020HailHanska-no account filed
June 2008HailHanska-no account filed
June 2005HailHanska-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Brown 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
Linden5.0 miles9
Searles6.3 miles9
Godahl8.2 miles9
Stark10.3 miles9
New Ulm11.4 miles11
Iberia12.3 miles9
Traulich Estates13.1 miles11
Essig13.4 miles10

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 HanskaAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q1814966The 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 644639. 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.

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.