Prairie City, South Dakota
6 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1954 and the latest in 1984. It stands in Strool-Plateau Township. It lies in ZIP code area 57649. The Survey maps it on the Prairie City quadrangle. 25 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 2,841 feet above sea level.
Population over time
2 figuresPrairie City grew from 23 to 25 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 | 23 | |
| 2020 | 25 | +2 (+9%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
4 surveys from 6 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.
- 1954 USGS Lemmon quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1957 USGS Lemmon quadrangle1:250000
- 1983 USGS Prairie City quadrangle1:24000
- 1984 USGS Lemmon quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
Fires near this place
22 since 2001Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 22 fires within 5 miles of Prairie City between 2001 and 2017, burning about 472 acres in total. 9 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 |
|---|---|
| Natural | 9 |
| Equipment and vehicle use | 7 |
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 4 |
| Smoking | 1 |
| Debris and open burning | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16 September 2015 | Natural | 50 acres | South Dakota Wildland Fire Suppression | BECKMAN |
| 13 September 2017 | Natural | 1.0 acres | South Dakota Wildland Fire Suppression | DATE |
| 3 August 2006 | Equipment and vehicle use | under an acre | South Dakota Wildland Fire Suppression | not named |
| 27 August 2014 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 20 acres | South Dakota Wildland Fire Suppression | HUSMAN WHEAT STUBBLE |
| 24 August 2015 | Equipment and vehicle use | 1.0 acres | South Dakota Wildland Fire Suppression | HAINE-CARR |
| 20 August 2017 | Natural | under an acre | South Dakota Wildland Fire Suppression | SCHECHER |
| 10 August 2017 | Natural | under an acre | South Dakota Wildland Fire Suppression | KOPREN |
| 9 July 2017 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 2.0 acres | South Dakota Wildland Fire Suppression | STEUER PLACE |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
41 since 2000Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Prairie City in 41 storm reports between 2000 and 2025: 24 hail, 14 thunderstorm wind, 1 flood, 1 flash flood. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 2008 | Flood | Prairie City | $500,000 | Record flooding was reported along the Moreau River northwest of Faith. Highway 20 west of Bison and Bixby, Cedar Canyon, and Zeona Roads in southern Perkins County were covered by water. |
| July 2013 | Hail | Prairie City | $25,000 | no account filed |
| September 2013 | Thunderstorm Wind | Prairie City | $5,000 | The combination of wind and hail caused minor damage. |
| July 2011 | Thunderstorm Wind | Prairie City | $5,000 | Large hail accompanied the strong wind gusts. |
| July 2011 | Flash Flood | Prairie City | $5,000 | Brushy Creek and other small creeks flooded portions of southern Perkins County. Gravel and debris washed over the Moreau River Road 13 miles east of Zeona. |
| June 2025 | Hail | Prairie City | - | Public reported large hail, estimated. |
| June 2019 | Thunderstorm Wind | Prairie City | - | The public reported wind gusts around 60 mph. |
| June 2015 | Thunderstorm Wind | Prairie City | - | Wind gusts were estimated at 60 mph. |
| September 2013 | Thunderstorm Wind | Prairie City | - | Wind gusts were estimated at 60 mph. |
| July 2012 | Thunderstorm Wind | Prairie City | - | Wind gusts were estimated at 60 mph. |
| July 2011 | Thunderstorm Wind | Prairie City | - | A spotter estimated wind gusts of 60 mph. |
| June 2010 | Thunderstorm Wind | Prairie City | - | Estimated wind gusts of 60 mph. |
| June 2010 | Thunderstorm Wind | Prairie City | - | Wind gusts were estimated at 60 mph. |
| August 2010 | Thunderstorm Wind | Prairie City | - | Wind gusts to 60 mph were reported in Prairie City. |
| August 2006 | Hail | Prairie City | - | Ground covered with hail. |
| August 2006 | Hail | Prairie City | - | Ground covered with hail. |
| July 2021 | Hail | Prairie City | - | no account filed |
| July 2020 | Hail | Prairie City | - | no account filed |
| July 2020 | Funnel Cloud | Prairie City | - | no account filed |
| June 2020 | Hail | Prairie City | - | no account filed |
| June 2019 | Hail | Prairie City | - | no account filed |
| June 2016 | Hail | Prairie City | - | no account filed |
| August 2016 | Hail | Prairie City | - | no account filed |
| July 2016 | Hail | Prairie City | - | no account filed |
| August 2014 | Hail | Prairie City | - | no account filed |
| September 2013 | Hail | Prairie City | - | no account filed |
| September 2013 | Hail | Prairie City | - | no account filed |
| September 2013 | Hail | Prairie City | - | no account filed |
| July 2011 | Hail | Prairie City | - | no account filed |
| July 2011 | Hail | Prairie City | - | no account filed |
| June 2010 | Hail | Prairie City | - | no account filed |
| August 2007 | Thunderstorm Wind | Prairie City | - | no account filed |
| July 2007 | Hail | Prairie City | - | no account filed |
| June 2006 | Thunderstorm Wind | Prairie City | - | no account filed |
| August 2006 | Hail | Prairie City | - | no account filed |
| September 2005 | Hail | Prairie City | - | no account filed |
| August 2003 | Hail | Prairie City | - | no account filed |
| August 2002 | Thunderstorm Wind | Prairie City | - | no account filed |
| August 2002 | Thunderstorm Wind | Prairie City | - | no account filed |
| June 2001 | Hail | Prairie City | - | no account filed |
| June 2000 | Hail | Prairie City | - | 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 Prairie City | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q4257706 | 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 1257197. 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.



