Beadle County area

Population and density of Beadle County

The Census Bureau estimates that 19,624 people lived in Beadle County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #1,909 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #11 of 66 in South Dakota. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 19,149, the population has grown by 475 (+2.5%), compared with +5.5% for South Dakota as a whole.

With 1,258.7 square miles of land, that is 16 people per square mile (6 per km²), placing Beadle County #2,455 nationally for density and #14 in South Dakota. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the South Dakota median is 5.7. Put another way, there are about 41 acres of land per resident.

U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2025 population estimates. Estimates are revised each year and are not decennial census counts. Density divides the whole population by the whole county’s land area, so it describes an average, not how settlement is distributed within the county. Population sources and methods.

Cities and towns in Beadle County

9 incorporated places lie at least partly in Beadle County. Together they are home to 15,736 people (80.2%); the other 3,888 (19.8%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Huron city, with 14,607 residents in the county.

Population: U.S. Census Bureau Vintage 2025 subcounty estimates, counting only the part of each place inside Beadle County. Land: 2026 Census Gazetteer, for the whole place even where it extends into other counties. How communities are listed.

Metropolitan area

Beadle County is a central county of the Huron, SD Micropolitan Statistical Area. Beadle County is the area’s only county equivalent, so the micro area has the same 1,258.7 square miles of land. By combined land it ranks #133 of 542 micropolitan areas, and #521 by population.

ZIP codes

11 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Beadle County; 7 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

5731257322573245734857350573535737957381573825738457386

ZIP Code Tabulation Areas are the Census Bureau’s approximations of USPS ZIP Code service areas, from the 2020 Census relationship files. Lighter codes have less than half of their land in this county. Post-office-box and single-address ZIP Codes have no tabulation area.

Counties bordering Beadle County

Beadle County shares a land border with 6 county equivalents. It has more land than 4 of them. The largest neighbor is Spink County (1,503.5 mi²) and the smallest is Jerauld County (526.1 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Beadle County forms a block of 7,084 mi² of land, of which it holds 17.8%.

How big is Beadle County compared with U.S. states?

Beadle County has more land than 1 of the 50 states. It is about 1.2 times the land area of Rhode Island (1,033.9 mi²), while Delaware, the next larger state, has 1.5 times as much land (1,948.6 mi²). South Dakota’s county land could hold about 60 areas the size of Beadle County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 35.5 miles (57.1 km) on each side. Real county shapes are rarely square, so this is a scale reference rather than a width or driving distance.

State figures are the sums of each state’s county-equivalent land measurements in the same Census release, so states and counties are compared on the same basis. Published state totals can differ slightly because of rounding. Compare all states · Counties bigger than entire states.

What stands out about Beadle County?

Beadle County has more land than 2,741 of the other 3,221 county equivalents in the dataset.

A median is the middle county-equivalent measurement, not the average of the largest and smallest. All three bars use the same linear scale. Very small areas may appear as a thin sliver; the labels retain their values.

Does including water change its rank?

Using land plus water places Beadle County at #555 nationally by total area, 74 places farther from the top than its land rank. Other county equivalents gain more area when their water measurements are included.

Its water share is 0.5%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.7 percentage points lower. This describes the statistical geography’s land/water mix, not flood exposure or developable land.

Closest positions in the national land ranking

These entries sit immediately beside Beadle County in the national ranking. They can be in different states and are not necessarily geographic neighbors.

Calculated from the same Census release as the area table. Total-area order uses original ALAND + AWATER; water shares and chart labels use published square miles. Calculation details.