Oglala Lakota County area

Population and density of Oglala Lakota County

The Census Bureau estimates that 13,338 people lived in Oglala Lakota County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #2,270 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #15 of 66 in South Dakota. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 13,673, the population has declined by 335 (−2.5%), compared with +5.5% for South Dakota as a whole.

With 2,093.6 square miles of land, that is 6.4 people per square mile (2.5 per km²), placing Oglala Lakota County #2,789 nationally for density and #31 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 100 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 Oglala Lakota County

1 incorporated place lies at least partly in Oglala Lakota County. Together they are home to 73 people (0.5%); the other 13,265 (99.5%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Batesland town, with 73 residents in the county.

Metropolitan area

Oglala Lakota County is not part of any metropolitan or micropolitan statistical area in the Office of Management and Budget’s July 2023 delineation; 1,306 other county equivalents are also outside one. These areas are built around an urban core of at least 10,000 people plus the counties tied to it by commuting, so counties outside them are generally rural.

ZIP codes

11 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Oglala Lakota County; 8 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

5771657722577445775257756577645777057772577805779469337

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 Oglala Lakota County

Oglala Lakota County shares a land border with 7 county equivalents, including 2 in Nebraska. It has more land than 5 of them. The largest neighbor is Pennington County (2,776.8 mi²) and the smallest is Bennett County (1,184.6 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Oglala Lakota County forms a block of 15,052.3 mi² of land, of which it holds 13.9%.

How big is Oglala Lakota County compared with U.S. states?

Oglala Lakota County has more land than 2 of the 50 states. It is about 1.1 times the land area of Delaware (1,948.6 mi²), while Connecticut, the next larger state, has 2.3 times as much land (4,842.5 mi²). South Dakota’s county land could hold about 36 areas the size of Oglala Lakota County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 45.8 miles (73.6 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 Oglala Lakota County?

Oglala Lakota County has more land than 2,953 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 Oglala Lakota County at #303 nationally by total area, 34 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 0.1%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 1 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 Oglala Lakota 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.