THE NEW SURPRISE VALLEY LAND BRIEF
Land in the
Keya Paha Tablelands setting.
New Surprise Valley township has 35.7 square miles of land in Mellette County. Its Census reference point is in Keya Paha Tablelands, within Northwestern Great Plains.
Rolling semiarid plains are punctuated by buttes, badlands and river breaks. Much of the regional terrain developed on sandstone, siltstone and shale without the leveling influence of continental glaciers.
Regional context: Northwestern Great Plains ↗ · Classification at the Census reference point
New Surprise Valley and Mellette County
New Surprise Valley is associated with Mellette County in the Census boundary data. Start with the parcel’s tax bill to match the property to that jurisdiction, then confirm which government handles its land use.
New Surprise Valley by land and water
The Census records 0.07 square miles of water within New Surprise Valley, or 0.2% of its total area. That share is close to Mellette County’s 0.3%. This is geographic context; waterfront status and usable land must be checked at the parcel.
For scale, New Surprise Valley township has 99.5% of the land area of nearby Running Bird township (35.9 square miles). These areas describe boundaries, not comparable property prices.

