THE BEADLE COUNTY LAND BRIEF
Land in the
James River Lowland setting.
Beadle County has 1,258.7 square miles of land in South Dakota. 2 mapped landscape regions meet across Beadle County: James River Lowland, Southern Missouri Coteau.
Flat to gently rolling glacial terrain supports a prairie transition between taller and shorter grasses. Many temporary and seasonal wetlands occupy depressions left in the glacial landscape.
Regional context: Northern Glaciated Plains ↗ · Regional mapping across the county footprint
Where the landscape changes
Beadle County intersects 2 mapped regional units. The largest mapped shares are:
- James River Lowland99.4%
- Southern Missouri Coteau0.6%
Northwestern Glaciated Plains in Beadle County
Glaciated plains bridge the wetter eastern prairie and the drier, more broken Great Plains. Numerous prairie potholes and other seasonal or persistent wetlands are characteristic regional landforms.
Read the regional source ↗Finding your parcel within Beadle County
The atlas lists 49 cities, towns, townships, and Census communities associated with Beadle County, including Whiteside, Fairfield, Allen. The list includes overlapping geography types and does not divide the county into exclusive service areas.
Beadle County by land and water
The Census records 6.11 square miles of water within Beadle County, or 0.5% of its total area. That share is close to Beadle County’s 0.5%. This is geographic context; waterfront status and usable land must be checked at the parcel.
For scale, Beadle County has 37.1 times the land area of nearby Theresa township (33.9 square miles). These areas describe boundaries, not comparable property prices.
The Census boundary meets Clark County, Hand County, Jerauld County, Kingsbury County, Sanborn County, Spink County within South Dakota. A tract near one of these lines should be matched to the county identifier on its own records.

