East River (South Dakota)

This article is about the region in South Dakota. For other uses, see East River (disambiguation).

The Missouri River divides South Dakota into the regions of West River (yellow) and East River (blue).

The East River portion of South Dakota refers to the section of the state lying east of the Missouri River. Geographical distinctions between the eastern and western sections of the state were reinforced by distinct patterns of European settlement and Native American resettlement during the 19th and 20th centuries.

The eastern half of South Dakota was heavily glaciated and is largely covered by glacial till and loamy soil, which has lent itself to agricultural uses. The Missouri River roughly follows the 100th meridian in the state, and areas to the west of the meridian receive less rainfall. The East River region was generally capable of supporting homesteaders on the standard 160-acre plots of the era during the wetter-than average years between 1879 and 1885; prolonged droughts between 1886 and 1897, however, severely affected the region's farmers.^[1]

During the second half of the 19th century, about 350,000 emigrants from western and northern Europe settled to the east of the Missouri. The later European immigrants, however, predominantly from southern and eastern Europe, were concentrated in the West River region.

About 70% of South Dakota's population in the 1990s was located in the East River region, including the state's largest city, Sioux Falls.^[2]

Footnotes

↑ "Drought and Agriculture in Eastern South Dakota During the Eighteen Nineties" 5. Agricultural History Society, cited through JSTOR: 162–180. JSTOR 3739326.
↑ "A South Dakota Statistical Collection" (PDF). South Dakota Legislature. Retrieved 2009-07-29.

References

The American Midwest: An Interpretive Encyclopedia. Richard Sisson, Christian K. Zacher, Andrew Robert Lee Cayton. Indiana University Press, 2006. ISBN 978-0-253-34886-9.

Coordinates: 45°N 98°W / 45°N 98°W / 45; -98

State of South Dakota

Pierre (capital)

Topics	Delegations Famous South Dakotans Geography Government History Timeline Transportation Symbols Universities Visitor attractions

Society	Culture Crime Demographics Economy Education Politics

Regions	Badlands Black Hills Coteau des Prairies Coteau du Missouri Dissected Till Plains Drift Prairie East River Pine Ridge Siouxland West River

Larger cities pop. over 5,000	Aberdeen Belle Fourche Box Elder Brandon Brookings Harrisburg Huron Madison Mitchell Pierre Rapid City Sioux Falls Spearfish Sturgis Vermillion Watertown Yankton

Smaller cities pop. 1,000 - 5,000	Baltic Beresford Britton Canton Chamberlain Clark Clear Lake Crooks Custer De Smet Deadwood Dell Rapids Eagle Butte Elk Point Flandreau Fort Pierre Freeman Garretson Gettysburg Gregory Groton Hartford Hot Springs Lead Lemmon Lennox Martin Milbank Miller Mission Mobridge North Sioux City Parker Parkston Platte Redfield Salem Sisseton Springfield Summerset Tea Tyndall Volga Wagner Webster Winner

Largest CDPs pop. over 1,000	Blackhawk Colonial Pine Hills Dakota Dunes Fort Thompson North Eagle Butte North Spearfish Oglala Pine Ridge Porcupine Rapid Valley Rosebud

Counties	Aurora Beadle Bennett Bon Homme Brookings Brown Brule Buffalo Butte Campbell Charles Mix Clark Clay Codington Corson Custer Davison Day Deuel Dewey Douglas Edmunds Fall River Faulk Grant Gregory Haakon Hamlin Hand Hanson Harding Hughes Hutchinson Hyde Jackson Jerauld Jones Kingsbury Lake Lawrence Lincoln Lyman Marshall McCook McPherson Meade Mellette Miner Minnehaha Moody Oglala Lakota Pennington Perkins Potter Roberts Sanborn Spink Stanley Sully Todd Tripp Turner Union Walworth Yankton Ziebach

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