Tonawanda, New York
30 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1897 and the latest in 1984. It stands in Tonawanda City. It lies in ZIP code area 14150. It stands on Ellicott Creek. The Survey maps it on the Tonawanda West quadrangle. 15,129 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 571 feet above sea level.
Then and now
1897 to 1984The same ground, surveyed 87 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.


On record in Tonawanda
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
Kibler High Schoollisted 1999
Tonawanda (25th Separate Company) Armorylisted 1994
US Post Office-Tonawandalisted 1989- Wood and Brooks Company Factory Complexlisted 2023
Population over time
2 figuresTonawanda fell from 15,130 to 15,129 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 | 15,130 | |
| 2020 | 15,129 | -1 (-0%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
14 surveys from 30 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.
- 1897 USGS Tonawanda quadrangle1:62500
- 1899 USGS Niagara quadrangle1:125000, 6 printings
- 1900 USGS Tonawanda quadrangle1:62500
- 1901 USGS Tonawanda quadrangle1:62500, 7 printings
- 1948 USGS Tonawanda quadrangle1:62500, 3 printings
- 1948 USGS Tonawanda West quadrangle1:24000, 2 printings
- 1950 USGS Tonawanda West quadrangle1:24000
- 1952 USGS Toronto quadrangle1:250000
- 1954 USGS Tonawanda West quadrangle1:25000
- 1962 USGS Toronto quadrangle1:250000
- 1965 USGS Tonawanda West quadrangle1:24000
- 1965 USGS Toronto quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1980 USGS Tonawanda West quadrangle1:25000
- 1984 USGS Lockport quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
Fires near this place
569 since 2000Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 569 fires within 5 miles of Tonawanda between 2000 and 2020, burning about 238 acres in total. 103 started naturally. 60 were 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 | 278 |
| Natural | 103 |
| Smoking | 64 |
| Arson/incendiarism | 60 |
| Debris and open burning | 22 |
| Equipment and vehicle use | 19 |
| Misuse of fire by a minor | 11 |
| Recreation and ceremony | 6 |
| Power generation/transmission/distribution | 5 |
| Railroad operations and maintenance | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 September 2015 | Natural | under an acre | Fire Department of New York | NA |
| 7 September 2016 | Natural | under an acre | Fire Department of New York | N/A |
| 7 September 2007 | Debris and open burning | under an acre | Fire Department of New York | not named |
| 6 September 2004 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Fire Department of New York | not named |
| 6 September 2000 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Fire Department of New York | not named |
| 5 September 2015 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Fire Department of New York | N/A |
| 4 September 2020 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 5.0 acres | Fire Department of New York | NA |
| 4 September 2012 | Natural | under an acre | Fire Department of New York | not named |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
20 since 1996Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Tonawanda in 20 storm reports between 1996 and 2024: 12 thunderstorm wind, 7 flash flood, 1 heavy rain. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| September 1996 | Flash Flood | Tonawanda | $400,000 | no account filed |
| November 1999 | Flash Flood | Tonawanda | $300,000 | no account filed |
| September 1996 | Flash Flood | Tonawanda | $200,000 | no account filed |
| August 1999 | Thunderstorm Wind | Tonawanda | $12,000 | no account filed |
| August 2019 | Flash Flood | Tonawanda | $10,000 | Flooding with flowing water was reported at Morgan Street and Kohler Street. |
| August 2019 | Flash Flood | Tonawanda | $10,000 | Knoche Road was closed due to flooding between Elmwood and Deleware Avenues. |
| September 2007 | Thunderstorm Wind | Tonawanda | $10,000 | no account filed |
| July 2006 | Thunderstorm Wind | Tonawanda | $10,000 | no account filed |
| May 2000 | Thunderstorm Wind | Tonawanda | $10,000 | no account filed |
| September 1997 | Thunderstorm Wind | Tonawanda | $10,000 | no account filed |
| August 2006 | Thunderstorm Wind | Tonawanda | $8,000 | no account filed |
| April 2023 | Thunderstorm Wind | Tonawanda | $5,000 | Part of a school roof was torn off. |
| November 2020 | Thunderstorm Wind | Tonawanda | $5,000 | Multiple trees and power lines were reported down. |
| February 2019 | Flash Flood | Tonawanda | $5,000 | no account filed |
| July 2019 | Thunderstorm Wind | Tonawanda | $2,000 | Trees and power lines down onto Kohler Street. |
| July 2021 | Thunderstorm Wind | Tonawanda | $1,000 | Trees were reported down. |
| June 2023 | Thunderstorm Wind | Tonawanda | $500 | A power pole was snapped. |
| July 2021 | Thunderstorm Wind | Tonawanda | $500 | A tree was reported down near Highland Avenue and Tussing Lane. |
| August 2024 | Flash Flood | Tonawanda | - | Several cars trapped in high water on Delaware Avenue under an underpass. Near Knoche Road. |
| July 2021 | Heavy Rain | Tonawanda | - | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sour Spring Grove | 2.3 miles | 30 | |
| Edgewater | 2.4 miles | 30 | |
| Green Acres Valley | 2.7 miles | 28 | |
| Brighton | 3.1 miles | 25 | |
| Ellwood Park | 3.4 miles | 25 | |
| Kenmore | 3.8 miles | 25 | |
| Willow Ridge Estates | 3.8 miles | 28 | |
| Grandyle Village | 4.3 miles | 26 |
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 Tonawanda | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q1380722 | 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 967652. 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.













