Ward, South Dakota
8 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1953 and the latest in 1985. It stands in Ward town. It lies in ZIP code area 57026. The Survey maps it on the Elkton quadrangle. 34 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,755 feet above sea level.
Population over time
11 figuresWard fell from 118 to 34 between 1920 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 |
|---|---|---|
| 1920 | 118 | |
| 1930 | 90 | -28 (-24%) |
| 1940 | 84 | -6 (-7%) |
| 1950 | 96 | +12 (+14%) |
| 1960 | 74 | -22 (-23%) |
| 1970 | 57 | -17 (-23%) |
| 1980 | 43 | -14 (-25%) |
| 1990 | 35 | -8 (-19%) |
| 2000 | 41 | +6 (+17%) |
| 2010 | 48 | +7 (+17%) |
| 2020 | 34 | -14 (-29%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
4 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.
- 1953 USGS Watertown quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
- 1958 USGS Watertown quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1967 USGS Elkton quadrangle1:24000
- 1985 USGS Brookings quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
Fires near this place
13 since 1999Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 13 fires within 5 miles of Ward between 1999 and 2011, burning about 321 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 | 5 |
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 5 |
| Misuse of fire by a minor | 1 |
| Smoking | 1 |
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 July 2006 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | South Dakota Wildland Fire Suppression | not named |
| 3 July 2006 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | South Dakota Wildland Fire Suppression | not named |
| 15 July 2006 | Debris and open burning | under an acre | South Dakota Wildland Fire Suppression | not named |
| 7 May 2006 | Misuse of fire by a minor | under an acre | South Dakota Wildland Fire Suppression | not named |
| 5 May 2008 | Debris and open burning | 35 acres | South Dakota Wildland Fire Suppression | not named |
| 8 April 2005 | Debris and open burning | under an acre | South Dakota Wildland Fire Suppression | not named |
| 4 April 2005 | Railroad operations and maintenance | under an acre | South Dakota Wildland Fire Suppression | not named |
| 13 April 2006 | Smoking | under an acre | South Dakota Wildland Fire Suppression | not named |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
9 since 2001Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Ward in 9 storm reports between 2001 and 2005: 5 hail, 4 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 2004 | Thunderstorm Wind | Ward | - | Thunderstorm winds blew down road signs and caused tree damage. |
| June 2005 | Hail | Ward | - | no account filed |
| May 2005 | Hail | Ward | - | no account filed |
| April 2004 | Hail | Ward | - | no account filed |
| July 2004 | Hail | Ward | - | no account filed |
| July 2002 | Thunderstorm Wind | Ward | - | no account filed |
| July 2002 | Thunderstorm Wind | Ward | - | no account filed |
| July 2002 | Thunderstorm Wind | Ward | - | no account filed |
| June 2001 | Hail | Ward | - | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pleasant Valley Colony | 6.5 miles | 9 | |
| Flandreau | 10.2 miles | 8 | |
| Egan | 14.7 miles | 8 | |
| Sioux Falls Junction | 17.2 miles | 8 | |
| Lone Tree | 18.7 miles | 8 | |
| Trent | 20.0 miles | 8 | |
| Colman | 22.2 miles | 9 |
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 Ward | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q2166844 | 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 1258820. 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.



