Wounded Knee, South Dakota
8 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1955 and the latest in 1985. It stands in the East Oglala Lakota unorganized territory. It lies in ZIP code area 57794. It stands on Bartlett Creek. The Survey maps it on the Wounded Knee quadrangle. 364 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 3,235 feet above sea level.
Population over time
2 figuresWounded Knee fell from 382 to 364 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 | 382 | |
| 2020 | 364 | -18 (-5%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
3 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.
- 1955 USGS Hot Springs quadrangle1:250000, 5 printings
- 1967 USGS Wounded Knee quadrangle1:24000
- 1985 USGS Pine Ridge quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
Fires near this place
738 since 1992Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 738 fires within 5 miles of Wounded Knee between 1992 and 2020, burning about 9,424 acres in total. 28 started naturally. 28 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 |
|---|---|
| Debris and open burning | 256 |
| Misuse of fire by a minor | 193 |
| Other causes | 57 |
| Fireworks | 57 |
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 53 |
| Equipment and vehicle use | 44 |
| Natural | 28 |
| Arson/incendiarism | 28 |
| Smoking | 15 |
| Recreation and ceremony | 3 |
| Power generation/transmission/distribution | 3 |
| Firearms and explosives use | 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 2006 | Power generation/transmission/distribution | under an acre | Pine Ridge Agency | ELECTRICAL |
| 9 September 2003 | Misuse of fire by a minor | under an acre | Pine Ridge Agency | BMX |
| 9 September 1994 | Natural | 5.0 acres | Pine Ridge Agency | N. DENBY |
| 6 September 2020 | Debris and open burning | under an acre | Pine Ridge Agency | TAURUS |
| 6 September 2012 | Misuse of fire by a minor | under an acre | Pine Ridge Agency | KINGSTON |
| 6 September 2012 | Fireworks | under an acre | Pine Ridge Agency | FLOATING FLAME |
| 6 September 2005 | Debris and open burning | under an acre | Pine Ridge Agency | TRINKET |
| 6 September 2001 | Misuse of fire by a minor | under an acre | Pine Ridge Agency | ONE SPOT |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
10 since 2000Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Wounded Knee in 10 storm reports between 2000 and 2024: 7 hail, 2 thunderstorm wind, 1 tornado. 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 2024 | Thunderstorm Wind | Wounded Knee | - | Wind gusts were estimated at 60 mph. |
| July 2023 | Thunderstorm Wind | Wounded Knee | - | Wind gusts were estimated near 70 mph. |
| August 2004 | Tornado (F0) | Wounded Knee | - | Brief tornado touchdown near Denby Hill. |
| June 2024 | Hail | Wounded Knee | - | no account filed |
| July 2023 | Hail | Wounded Knee | - | no account filed |
| June 2022 | Hail | Wounded Knee | - | no account filed |
| May 2018 | Hail | Wounded Knee | - | no account filed |
| August 2014 | Hail | Wounded Knee | - | no account filed |
| June 2004 | Hail | Wounded Knee | - | no account filed |
| May 2000 | Hail | Wounded Knee | - | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Denby | 5.7 miles | 8 | |
| Porcupine | 7.1 miles | 8 | |
| Manderson | 8.6 miles | 8 | |
| Wakpamani | 11.6 miles | 9 | |
| Evergreen | 11.8 miles | 8 | |
| Pine Ridge | 12.8 miles | 9 | |
| Batesland | 14.0 miles | 8 | |
| Sharps Corner | 17.3 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 Wounded Knee | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q509380 | 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 1265714. 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.


