All About South Dakota
South Dakota is a constituent state of the United States of America. It is a Great Plains state bordered on the north by North Dakota, on the east by Minnesota and Iowa, on the south by Nebraska, and on the west by Wyoming and Montana. Its boundaries contain 77,116 square miles (199,730 square kilometres), which are split by the upper Missouri River valley into ''east-river'' and ''west-river'' regions. The state is named for the Dakota division of the Sioux Indians. Pierre, near the centre of South Dakota, is one of the smallest state capital cities; it is named for the 19th-century St. Louis, Mo., magnate Pierre Chouteau, Jr. South Dakota was admitted to the Union as the 40th state on Nov. 2, 1889.
South Dakota remains a predominantly rural state. Slightly less than one-tenth of the population is American Indian, representing 13 tribes of the Sioux. The non-Indian populace contains more than 20 ethnic and religious groups that retain some Old Country ways - Norwegians, Swedes, Danes, Dutch, Irish, German-Russians, Mennonites, Hutterites, ''Plain Germans,'' several subdivisions of Czechs, English, Welsh, and others. In a society of such diverse heritage there is no typical South Dakotan.
Eastern South Dakota lies within the glaciated physiographic province known as the Prairie Plains. West-river, except for the Black Hills in the southwestern corner, has the rolling topography of the unglaciated Great Plains, characterized by high buttes, rough canyons, and wide expanses of nearly level tablelands. It includes the Badlands, which extend along the White and Cheyenne rivers for more than 100 miles (160 kilometres). The eroded landscape of the Badlands has been a rich repository of fossilized prehistoric animals and the primary source of the siltation that has given the Missouri its nickname, Big Muddy.
The Black Hills - two-thirds of which lie in South Dakota, with the remainder in Wyoming - constitute a dome-shaped uplift rising 3,500 feet (1,100 metres) above the surrounding terrain. Harney Peak, near the centre of the formation, at 7,242 feet (2,207 metres) above sea level, is the highest point in North America east of the Rocky Mountains. Wooded areas lie mainly in the Black Hills and along the buttes that rise in the northwestern part of the state. Most wooded acreage is incorporated into the Black Hills National Forest and the Custer National Forest. The western yellow, or ponderosa, pine is the chief commercial tree.
Since the fur trade era, the economy of South Dakota has relied mainly on livestock production, farming, tourism, and forest and mineral industries. In addition, the state has benefited from federal installations - notably from operations of U.S. Indian agencies, facilities built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers along the Missouri basin, national parks and monuments, and Ellsworth Air Force Base, a part of the Strategic Air Command.
Gutzon Borglum's stone carvings of four U.S. presidents on Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills are a major tourist attraction. The University of South Dakota supports the Shrine to Music Museum at Vermillion, and South Dakota State University has the South Dakota Memorial Art Center in Brookings. The large South Dakota State Archaeological Research Center is located in Rapid City, and the Prehistoric Indian Village with its Boehnen Memorial Museum, is under management by the city of Mitchell. Among recreational areas are Custer and Bear Butte state parks, Black Hills National Forest, and Wind Cave National Park.
The transformation of 19th-century surface trails into modern roads began early in the 20th century. In the 1920s concrete highways were built, and all routes to centres of population in excess of 750 were graveled. During the 1930s hinterland roads were improved through the use of work-relief and conservation funds. Federal allocations initiated in 1956 led to the completion of two interstate highways (north–south and east–west) across the state. Reliable crossings over the Missouri River were restricted mainly to ferries and periods of ice cover until the 1920s, when modern bridge construction began. The number of crossings also increased with the construction of dams on the Missouri River in 1954–66. Since then, the Missouri has not been navigable for commercial purposes upstream from Sioux City, Iowa. The last ferry in South Dakota, at Running Water near Yankton, closed in the mid-1980s. Passenger rail traffic has disappeared, but freight train transportation revived in the 1980s through the use of state funds for track improvement. South Dakotans have had air service since World War II, when federal funds were used to build airports. Airlines offer regular service to the largest cities, while private planes operate out of more than 150 public and private airstrips.
