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.
Population over time
2 figuresColumbus 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.
| Year | People | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 133 | |
| 2020 | 139 | +6 (+5%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
6 surveys from 8 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.
- 1947 USGS Columbus quadrangle1:24000
- 1949 USGS Columbus quadrangle1:24000
- 1950 USGS Columbus quadrangle1:62500, 2 printings
- 1953 USGS Williston quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1957 USGS Williston quadrangle1:250000
- 1982 USGS Kenmare quadrangle1:100000
Fires near this place
4 since 2013Regional 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/undetermined | 2 |
| Power generation/transmission/distribution | 2 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 August 2017 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 10 acres | North Dakota State Forest Service | 2017012 |
| 17 July 2020 | Power generation/transmission/distribution | under an acre | North Dakota State Forest Service | LARSON FIRE |
| 13 May 2013 | Power generation/transmission/distribution | 360 acres | North Dakota State Forest Service | RON ERICKSON |
| 20 April 2016 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 30 acres | North Dakota State Forest Service | 2016004 |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
13 since 1995Regional 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.
| When | Event | Place named | Harm | What the report says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| July 1999 | Hail | Columbus | $20,000 | A one to seven mile path of damage to agricultural region. |
| May 2010 | Thunderstorm Wind | Columbus | $5,000 | The high thunderstorm wind damaged oil tanks. The tanks were overturned. The time and wind speed are both estimated. |
| July 2012 | Hail | Columbus | - | This report came from a campground just south of the Canadian border. |
| July 1995 | Thunderstorm Wind | Columbus | - | Considerable damage done to fairground grandstand. |
| August 2025 | Hail | Columbus | - | no account filed |
| June 2024 | Hail | Columbus | - | no account filed |
| June 2012 | Hail | Columbus | - | no account filed |
| June 2010 | Hail | Columbus | - | no account filed |
| August 2005 | Hail | Columbus | - | no account filed |
| August 2002 | Hail | Columbus | - | no account filed |
| July 2001 | Hail | Columbus | - | no account filed |
| July 2001 | Hail | Columbus | - | no account filed |
| August 1997 | Hail | Columbus | - | 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.
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 Columbus | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q2315759 | 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 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.





