Sioux Falls

Sioux Falls is the most populous city in the U.S. state of South Dakota and the 121st-most populous city in the United States. It is the county seat of Minnehaha County and also extends into northern Lincoln County to the south, which continues up to the Iowa state line. The population was 192517 at the 2020 census, and in 2022, its estimated population was 202,078. The Sioux Falls metro area accounts for more than 30% of the state’s population. Chartered in 1856 on the banks of the Big Sioux River, the city is situated in the rolling hills at the junction of interstates 29 and 90.

The history of Sioux Falls revolves around the cascades of the Big Sioux River. The falls were created about 14000 years ago during the last ice age. The lure of the falls has been a powerful influence. Ho-Chunk, Ioway, Otoe, Missouri, Omaha (and Ponca at the time), Quapaw, Kansa, Osage, Arikira, Dakota, and Cheyenne people inhabited and settled the region previous to Europeans and European descendants. Numerous burial mounds still exist on the high bluffs near the river and are spread throughout the general vicinity. Indigenous people maintained an agricultural society with fortified villages, and the later arrivals rebuilt on many of the same sites that were previously settled. Lakota populate urban and reservation communities in the contemporary state and many Lakota, Dakota, and numerous other Indigenous Americans reside in Sioux Falls today.