Orient, South Dakota
9 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1951 and the latest in 1985. It stands in Orient town. It lies in ZIP code area 57467. The Survey maps it on the Orient quadrangle. 51 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,608 feet above sea level.
Population over time
2 figuresOrient fell from 63 to 51 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 | 63 | |
| 2020 | 51 | -12 (-19%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
4 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.
- 1951 USGS Orient quadrangle1:24000, 2 printings
- 1953 USGS Huron quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
- 1954 USGS Huron quadrangle1:250000
- 1985 USGS Highmore quadrangle1:100000, 3 printings
In the county-history sources
378 words on this townshipHistory of Faulk County, South Dakota, Together with Biographical Sketches of Pioneers and Prominent Citizens, published 1909 names this settlement in its chapter on Orient Town. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.
Orient is located in the southeast corner of Orient township, ten miles from Faulkton and on the south line of Faulk county. It is the southern terminus of the Roscoe and Orient branch of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railroad. Its distance from Miller in Hand county has given it a large amount of trade from the northern part of Hand county. Surrounded by large tracts of improved farming land it furnishes ample business for its four large grain elevators. It has a flourishing coal and lumber trade and meets a large and increasing demand for farm machin-
Passage source: History of Faulk County, South Dakota, Together with Biographical Sketches of Pioneers and Prominent Citizens, published 1909.
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 Orient Town - it names this place 1 more 1 time.
Fires near this place
4 since 1999Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 4 fires within 5 miles of Orient between 1999 and 2015, burning about 10 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 |
|---|---|
| Debris and open burning | 1 |
| Equipment and vehicle use | 1 |
| Power generation/transmission/distribution | 1 |
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17 August 1999 | Debris and open burning | 5.0 acres | Huron Volunteer Fire Dept. | PERRENOUD |
| 22 July 2015 | Equipment and vehicle use | 4.0 acres | South Dakota Wildland Fire Suppression | JOE |
| 2 July 2011 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1.0 acres | South Dakota Wildland Fire Suppression | DEITER BROTHERS |
| 24 October 2003 | Power generation/transmission/distribution | under an acre | South Dakota Wildland Fire Suppression | not named |
Storms near this place
25 since 1994Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Orient in 25 storm reports between 1994 and 2024: 15 hail, 8 thunderstorm wind, 1 flash flood, 1 funnel cloud. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 2021 | Thunderstorm Wind | Orient | - | Multiple grain bins were blown over by estimated 80 mph winds. |
| July 2018 | Hail | Orient | - | Golf ball hail damaged many acres of corn and beans. |
| June 2012 | Thunderstorm Wind | Orient | - | Sixty mph winds knocked out power in Orient. |
| June 2012 | Thunderstorm Wind | Orient | - | Sixty mph winds occurred. |
| May 2010 | Thunderstorm Wind | Orient | - | Sixty mph winds occurred south of Faulkton with no damage reported. |
| August 2005 | Flash Flood | Orient | - | Heavy rains of 3 to 6 inches fell in and around Orient flooding ditches and roads. Several roads were closed for several hours. |
| August 2005 | Thunderstorm Wind | Orient | - | High winds downed a few trees and branches along with damaging a few roofs in and near Orient. |
| May 2024 | Hail | Orient | - | no account filed |
| July 2024 | Hail | Orient | - | no account filed |
| August 2021 | Thunderstorm Wind | Orient | - | no account filed |
| June 2020 | Hail | Orient | - | no account filed |
| July 2018 | Hail | Orient | - | no account filed |
| July 2018 | Hail | Orient | - | no account filed |
| July 2018 | Hail | Orient | - | no account filed |
| July 2018 | Hail | Orient | - | no account filed |
| July 2008 | Funnel Cloud | Orient | - | no account filed |
| July 2008 | Hail | Orient | - | no account filed |
| August 2006 | Thunderstorm Wind | Orient | - | no account filed |
| August 2006 | Hail | Orient | - | no account filed |
| August 2005 | Hail | Orient | - | no account filed |
| August 2005 | Hail | Orient | - | no account filed |
| June 2003 | Thunderstorm Wind | Orient | - | no account filed |
| June 2003 | Hail | Orient | - | no account filed |
| July 2002 | Hail | Orient | - | no account filed |
| June 1994 | Hail | Orient | - | 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 Orient | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q533817 | 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 1256902. 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.



