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Columbus, North Dakota

8 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1947 and the latest in 1982. It stands in Columbus City. It lies in ZIP code area 58727. The Survey maps it on the Columbus quadrangle. 139 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,932 feet above sea level.

Columbus within Burke County

Population over time

2 figures

Columbus grew from 133 to 139 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
2010133
2020139+6 (+5%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

6 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

4 since 2013

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 4 fires within 5 miles of Columbus between 2013 and 2020, burning about 400 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/undetermined2
Power generation/transmission/distribution2

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
7 August 2017Missing data/not specified/undetermined10 acresNorth Dakota State Forest Service2017012
17 July 2020Power generation/transmission/distributionunder an acreNorth Dakota State Forest ServiceLARSON FIRE
13 May 2013Power generation/transmission/distribution360 acresNorth Dakota State Forest ServiceRON ERICKSON
20 April 2016Missing data/not specified/undetermined30 acresNorth Dakota State Forest Service2016004

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Burke County

Storms near this place

13 since 1995

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Columbus in 13 storm reports between 1995 and 2025: 11 hail, 2 thunderstorm wind. 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
July 1999HailColumbus$20,000A one to seven mile path of damage to agricultural region.
May 2010Thunderstorm WindColumbus$5,000The high thunderstorm wind damaged oil tanks. The tanks were overturned. The time and wind speed are both estimated.
July 2012HailColumbus-This report came from a campground just south of the Canadian border.
July 1995Thunderstorm WindColumbus-Considerable damage done to fairground grandstand.
August 2025HailColumbus-no account filed
June 2024HailColumbus-no account filed
June 2012HailColumbus-no account filed
June 2010HailColumbus-no account filed
August 2005HailColumbus-no account filed
August 2002HailColumbus-no account filed
July 2001HailColumbus-no account filed
July 2001HailColumbus-no account filed
August 1997HailColumbus-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Burke 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
Kincaid1.2 miles8
Stampede2.6 miles7
Larson4.3 miles8
Atcoal7.0 miles8
Rival8.9 miles7
Lignite11.7 miles7
Sevenmile Corner12.4 miles7
Portal13.8 miles7

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 ColumbusAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q2315759The 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 1028426. 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.