South Dakota

The area of present-day South Dakota was inhabited starting about 10,000 years ago, and its early peoples hunted bison and other large animals. The Mandan and the Arikara also settled in the region and established a large trading network, and by the early 1700s the Sioux had become dominant there.⁠[1]

In 1682 René-Robert Cavelier, sieur de La Salle became the first European to visit Upper Louisiana, and the French continued to explore the area in the 18th century.⁠[1]

In 1743 the Verendrye brothers buried a lead plate claiming the land for France.⁠[2]

In 1803 the United States completed the Louisiana Purchase from France, through which the area of present-day South Dakota passed to the United States.⁠[3][1]

In 1817 the first permanent American settlement in the area was established at Fort Pierre.⁠[2]

Fur traders remained the principal settlers until the mid-1850s, when land speculators arrived and Fort Randall was established on the Missouri River. Permanent settlements were founded at Vermillion and Yankton in 1859.⁠[1]

Intermittent wars between the Sioux and the U.S. government began in 1854 and ended in 1890 with the massacre at Wounded Knee, which concluded the military conquest of the region’s Native Americans.⁠[1]

On this day Congress established the Territory of Dakota; the Organic Act creating it was signed by President James Buchanan.⁠[4][2]

The territory originally included present-day North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming and part of Nebraska. When it was created, the settler population was estimated at no more than 1,000 and the Sioux population at no more than 25,000.⁠[3][1]

The Second Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868) guaranteed the Sioux peoples exclusive possession of the land west of the Missouri River. In the same year Dakota Territory was reduced to the area now occupied by North Dakota and South Dakota.⁠[1][3]

Despite the treaty, the search for gold in the Black Hills in the early 1870s drew thousands of settlers, and miners swarmed into the area.⁠[1]

In the Sioux “agreement” of 1877, Congress forced the Sioux groups to give up their claim to the Black Hills and the surrounding area.⁠[1]

The gold rush was followed by a flood of settlers into the eastern portion of Dakota Territory, whose population grew from about 80,000 to 325,000 between 1878 and 1887; Rapid City emerged as the main gateway to the area.⁠[1]

Rail lines reached the Missouri River in the late 1870s, and by 1886 tracks had crossed the state and reached the Black Hills. The first railroad arrived in Sioux Falls in June 1878, after which the town’s population grew faster.⁠[1][5]

From 1880 to 1934 Sioux cultural life was restricted, and from 1883 to 1934 the federal government made the Sun Dance a crime.⁠[6]

In 1883 territorial governor Nehemiah Ordway and his allies moved the territorial capital from Yankton to Bismarck. That year leaders in the southern half of the territory asked Congress to make the south a separate state, and delegates met in Sioux Falls to draft a plan and a constitution for a state called South Dakota.⁠[7]

The southern half held constitutional conventions in 1883 and 1885, and at the latter the state of Dakota was established. Statehood bills introduced by Senator Benjamin Harrison in 1883 and 1885 did not pass Congress.⁠[1][7]

On this day President Grover Cleveland signed the Enabling Act, which authorized constitutional conventions for North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Washington StateWashington (state)Washington is a state on the Pacific coast of the northwestern United States; its capital is Olympia and its largest city is Seattle. Washington was admitted to the Union on November 11, 1889, as the 42nd state, and the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted 7,705,281 residents.Open the full entry. Congress approved dual statehood based on dividing Dakota Territory at the 46th parallel.⁠[4][1]

In 1889 delegates met again in Sioux Falls and wrote a final state constitution, which southern Dakota voters approved that fall. On October 1 voters elected Arthur Mellette as the first governor and chose Pierre as the temporary capital for one year while voters decided on a permanent site.⁠[7][4]

On this day President Benjamin Harrison issued proclamations admitting North Dakota and South Dakota. Because the two documents could not be distinguished, they were shuffled face down before he signed them, so the order of signing is unknown; by alphabetical order, North Dakota is generally counted as the 39th state.⁠[4][2]

In the first permanent-capital election in 1890, Huron challenged Pierre and lost; Mitchell challenged again in 1904, and Pierre won the permanent capital. To end the costly capital fights, the Legislature voted to build a stone capitol, which was completed in 1910.⁠[7]

Around the turn of the 20th century many residents embraced the Progressive Movement. In 1898 South Dakota became the first state to adopt the referendum and initiative.⁠[6]

In 1909 John Morrell and Company opened a large meatpacking plant in Sioux Falls, and in 1917 the Sioux Falls Stockyards were established.⁠[5]

Between 1917 and 1919 the state established a state-funded rural credits (farm loan) program, a state hail insurance system, a state coal mine and a state cement plant.⁠[6]

On December 28, 1923, state historian Doane Robinson suggested carving the mountain; the sculptor was Gutzon Borglum. The mountain had been named in 1885 for New York attorney Charles E. Rushmore, and its summit is 5,725 feet above sea level.⁠[8]

On August 10, 1927, President Calvin Coolidge attended the dedication ceremony and gave a speech, and the first drilling began on October 4 of that year. The faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham LincolnAbraham LincolnAbraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th president of the United States (1861–1865). Born to a frontier farming family in Kentucky, he had less than a year of formal schooling, taught himself law, and served in the Illinois legislature and the U.S. House of Representatives before winning the presidency as the Republican candidate in 1860. During the Civil War he preserved the Union, issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and pushed the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery through Congress. He was shot by John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theatre in Washington on April 14, 1865, and died the next day.Open the full entry and Theodore Roosevelt were dedicated on July 4, 1930, August 30, 1936, September 17, 1937 and July 2, 1939, respectively.⁠[9][8]

After Gutzon Borglum died on March 6, 1941, his son Lincoln Borglum continued the work; October 31, 1941, was the last day of work, and the memorial was declared complete. The project cost $989,992.32 in total, nearly 400 people worked on it, no one died during the carving, and about 90% of the carving was done with dynamite. Legislation promoted by Senator Peter Norbeck and Congressman William Williamson provided 85% of the funding.⁠[8][9]

By 1930 the state’s population had reached 690,000, more than double the figure at statehood. In the 1930s drought and dust affected much of the farmland, and many residents found work with the Works Progress Administration and the Civilian Conservation Corps; the population fell markedly as residents left to find work and did not grow again until after World War II.⁠[6]

The Flood Control Act of 1944 allowed the damming and development of the Missouri River. The federal Pick–Sloan plan after World War II built major dams on the MissouriMissouriMissouri is a state of the United States bounded on the east by the Mississippi River; its capital is Jefferson City, its largest city is Kansas City, and its second-largest is St. Louis. It was admitted to the Union on August 10, 1821, as the 24th state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 6,154,913.Open the full entry and numerous smaller dams on its tributaries, and more than 50 dams were eventually built on the river and its tributaries. The projects flooded hundreds of square miles of Native American land and forced the relocation of about 1,000 extended-family households.⁠[6]

The Water Resources Development Act of 1999 began returning some reservoir areas to the tribes, though the final compensation had not been determined, and the Missouri River Protection and Improvement Act of 2000 aimed to reduce silt buildup in the reservoirs.⁠[6]

In February 1973 members of the American Indian Movement occupied Wounded Knee; a siege by federal marshals lasted until May, when the occupiers surrendered their arms in exchange for a promise to negotiate their grievances.⁠[6]

The Sioux legal claim to the Black Hills was not resolved until 1980, when the U.S. Supreme Court decreed that the Black Hills belonged to the Sioux, held that taking the land without compensation had been illegal, and authorized the federal government to pay the Sioux more than $100 million. The tribes refused to accept the settlement unless Congress returned all 1.3 million acres of federal land in the Black Hills.⁠[1]

By the early 21st century the federal Black Hills fund exceeded $800 million, but the tribes continued to refuse monetary settlement without the return of land.⁠[6]

In 1981 Citibank moved its credit card-processing center to Sioux Falls, and in the 1980s local hospitals expanded and the city became a regional medical center.⁠[5]

On this day the U.S. Board on Geographic Names voted unanimously to rename Harney Peak, the state’s highest summit, as Black Elk Peak, after the Oglala Lakota holy man Nicholas Black Elk. The peak rises 7,242 feet (2,207 meters) above sea level and is the highest point in North America east of the Rocky Mountains.⁠[10][11][12]

In the apportionment based on the 2020 census, South Dakota kept its one seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, the same as in 2010, with an average of 887,770 people per seat; the state has three electoral votes in the 2024 and 2028 presidential elections.⁠[13][14]

From this day the state minimum wage rose from $11.50 to $11.85 an hour (SDCL 60-11-3.2).⁠[2]

South Dakota’s government has legislative, executive and judicial branches. The South Dakota Legislature is bicameral, with a Senate and a House of Representatives; the state constitution sets the Senate at 25 to 35 members and the House at 50 to 75, and there are currently 35 senators and 70 representatives. The state has 35 legislative districts, each electing one senator and two representatives, with Districts 26 and 28 each split into two House districts. The Legislature convenes annually in Pierre at noon on the second Tuesday in January, and a regular session may not exceed 40 legislative days.⁠[15]

As of November 2026 the governor is Larry RhodenLarry RhodenLarry Rhoden is an American Republican politician and rancher who served in the South Dakota Legislature and as lieutenant governor before succeeding Kristi Noem as the 34th governor of South Dakota in January 2025. He was elected governor in November 2026.Open the full entry, the 34th Governor of South Dakota, who took office in January 2025; he had been elected lieutenant governor in 2018 and re-elected in 2022. The governor is elected every four years and may serve no more than two consecutive terms.⁠[16][17]

The constitution also provides for five statewide offices: attorney general, secretary of state, state auditor, state treasurer, and commissioner of school and public lands. These constitutional officers serve four-year terms and may serve no more than two consecutive terms, while three public utilities commissioners serve staggered six-year terms without term limits.⁠[18]

The Supreme Court has five members, the Chief Justice and four justices. Justices are appointed by the governor from nominees chosen by the Judicial Qualifications Commission and face a nonpolitical retention election three years after appointment and every eight years thereafter; the justices elect the Chief Justice from among themselves to a four-year term, with re-election allowed. As of November 2026 the Chief Justice is Steven R. Jensen.⁠[19]

On the 2010 census basis, South Dakota has a total area of 77,116 square miles (199,729 square kilometers), of which 75,811 square miles (196,350 square kilometers) are land and 1,305 square miles (3,379 square kilometers) are water. The state measures about 370 miles from east to west and 210 miles from north to south.⁠[20][3]

The upper Missouri River valley splits the state into eastern and western regions. The geographic center of the United States lies just north of Belle Fourche. The state contains a continental divide: Lake Traverse drains north to Hudson Bay, while Big Stone Lake drains south toward the Gulf of Mexico; Big Stone Lake is also the state’s lowest point, at 966 feet.⁠[12][11]

The Black Hills are a dome-shaped uplift rising about 3,500 feet (1,100 meters) above the surrounding terrain, and the Badlands extend for more than 100 miles (160 km) along the White and Cheyenne rivers.⁠[12]

Average annual precipitation is about 20 inches (500 mm), and the number of frost-free days ranges from 160 in the southeast to 110 in the Black Hills. Temperatures range from lows near 0 °F (−18 °C) in January to highs in the upper 80s °F (about 31 °C) in July, and extremes near −40 °F (−40 °C) and about 115 °F (44 °C) can occur. The state has nearly 300 species of birds.⁠[12]

The U.S. Census Bureau estimates South Dakota’s population at 935,094 on July 1, 2025, up 5.5% from the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 886,656. The 2010 census (April 1, 2010) counted 814,180 people. On 2020 figures, the state’s land area is 75,809.61 square miles and its population density 11.7 people per square mile.⁠[21]

In 2020–2024, foreign-born persons made up 4.0% of the population, and median household income was $75,081 (in 2024 dollars).⁠[21]

About nine-tenths of the population is of European descent, with people of German ancestry forming the largest ethnic group, and the Sioux made up less than one-tenth of the population in the early 21st century. There are nine reservations in the state. More than half the population is urban, and by the end of the 1990s about two-thirds of the counties had experienced a decrease in population.⁠[12]

U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis data put South Dakota’s nominal GDP in 2025 at $82,001.9 million.⁠[22]

The Legislative Research Council describes tourism and agriculture as two significant parts of South Dakota’s economy. Agriculture has a $32.1 billion impact on the state economy each year; the state has more than 19 million acres of cropland and 23 million acres of pastureland and ranks in the top 10 nationally for production of 25 agricultural commodities.⁠[2]

Mount Rushmore National Memorial receives about two million visitors each year.⁠[8]

The state is named for the Dakota Sioux. Its nickname is “The Mount Rushmore State,” its motto “Under God the People Rule,” and its slogan “Great Faces. Great Places.”⁠[12][2]

The outer circle of the state seal reads “Great Seal 1889,” and its design represents commerce, industry and natural resources. The state flag shows the seal surrounded by a golden blazing sun on a sky-blue field, with “South Dakota, The Mount Rushmore State” in a circle around the sun.⁠[2]

The original state flag was designed in 1909 by legislative librarian Ida M. Anding, with a gold blazing sun on a blue field and the seal on the reverse. In 1963 House Bill 503, introduced by Representative William Sahr, was approved by the governor on March 11, redesigning the flag to make it cheaper to produce. In 1992 a measure sponsored by Representative Gordon Pederson changed the flag’s wording to “The Mount Rushmore State,” which became the official state nickname the same year.⁠[23]

The state bird is the Chinese ring-necked pheasant, a game bird introduced from Asia near the outset of the 20th century; the state flower is the pasque, the tree the Black Hills spruce, the animal the coyote, the insect the honeybee, the fish the walleye, the fossil the Triceratops, the gemstone the Fairburn agate, and the song “Hail, South Dakota.” Kuchen is the state dessert, chislic the state nosh and frybread the state bread.⁠[2][12]

The South Dakota Board of Regents has constitutional authority to govern the state’s system of public higher education, overseeing six universities and two special schools: Black Hills State University, Dakota State University, Northern State University, the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, South Dakota State University and the University of South Dakota, along with the South Dakota School for the Blind and Visually Impaired and South Dakota Services for the Deaf.⁠[24]

State of South Dakota: Official website: https://www.sd.gov/ (opens in a new window).⁠[25]

South Dakota Secretary of State: Official website: https://sdsos.gov/ (opens in a new window).⁠[3]

South Dakota Governor Larry Rhoden: Official website: https://governor.sd.gov/ (opens in a new window).⁠[16]

South Dakota Unified Judicial System: Official website: https://ujs.sd.gov/ (opens in a new window).⁠[19]

South Dakota Board of Regents: Official website: https://sdbor.edu/ (opens in a new window).⁠[24]