South Dakota Counties
Complete list of all 66 counties in South Dakota with population, area, median income, and county seats — plus a free printable blank map.
Labeled outline map of South Dakota counties. Download a printable version in SVG, PNG, or PDF.
All 65 South Dakota counties
| County | County Seat | Population ▼ | Area | Median Income | Cities |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Minnehaha | — | 209,935 | 807 mi² | $80,118 | 12 |
| Pennington | — | 103,728 | 2,777 mi² | $74,368 | 7 |
| Lincoln | — | 66,702 | 577 mi² | $99,709 | 9 |
| Meade | — | 40,582 | 3,471 mi² | $75,912 | 15 |
| Brown | — | 37,902 | 1,713 mi² | $72,851 | 14 |
| Brookings | — | 34,745 | 792 mi² | $69,832 | 7 |
| Codington | — | 28,807 | 689 mi² | $72,666 | 6 |
| Lawrence | — | 26,197 | 800 mi² | $72,539 | 6 |
| Yankton | — | 23,618 | 521 mi² | $72,327 | 7 |
| Davison | — | 21,051 | 436 mi² | $65,945 | 3 |
| Beadle | — | 19,796 | 1,259 mi² | $68,327 | 8 |
| Hughes | — | 18,124 | 742 mi² | $81,077 | 3 |
| Union | — | 14,418 | 461 mi² | $92,616 | 4 |
| Clay | — | 14,410 | 412 mi² | $56,219 | 3 |
| Oglala Lakota | — | 13,603 | 0 mi² | $53,932 | 8 |
How many counties does South Dakota have?
South Dakota has 66 counties covering 75,811 square miles and roughly 897,219 residents. The state was admitted to the Union in 1889 as the 40th state, and the current county boundaries reflect more than a century of administrative subdivision.
The largest county by land area is Meade County at 3,471 square miles, home to about 40,582 residents. The most populous is Minnehaha County with approximately 209,935 residents — a density of about 260 people per square mile.
At the other end of the scale, Jones County has only about 977 residents.
South Dakota’s capital is Pierre, while the largest city is Sioux Falls — a common pattern in the United States, where many states placed their capitals in smaller, more central towns rather than their largest commercial hubs.
Related resources
Download a printable outline of South Dakota’s county boundaries from our blank map of South Dakota page — available in SVG, PNG, and PDF.
Use the What County Am I In? tool to detect which South Dakota county a GPS location or address falls in, or the Address to County Lookup for batch input.
For demographic radius analysis, the Find ZIP Codes in Radius and Population Within Radius tools let you draw a circle around any South Dakota address and see every ZIP code and the total population inside.
Two SimpleMapLab studies cover South Dakota specifically: the 100-mile radius around Pierre measures how much of the state lives within 100 miles of its capitol, and the loneliest town in South Dakota ranks the state’s most isolated inhabited place. The county-counts blog post puts South Dakota’s 66 counties in national context.
Frequently asked questions
Population and demographics are aggregated from ZIP-code-level US Census data via the SimpleMaps dataset. Countiesboundaries are from the US Atlas TopoJSON build of the Census Bureau’s TIGER/Line shapefiles. Land area is from the Census Gazetteer. State counts follow the US Census Bureau’s definition of counties and county-equivalents (50 states + DC = 3,143). All sources are public domain.