THE LINCOLN COUNTY LAND BRIEF
Land in the
James River Lowland setting.
Lincoln County has 577.3 square miles of land in South Dakota. 2 mapped landscape regions meet across Lincoln County: James River Lowland, Loess Prairies.
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
Lincoln County intersects 2 mapped regional units. The largest mapped shares are:
- James River Lowland80.2%
- Loess Prairies19.8%
Western Corn Belt Plains in Lincoln County
Glacial till plains and windblown loess hills make up the Western Corn Belt landscape. Near-level and rolling terrain are interspersed with steeper river valleys and hills.
Read the regional source ↗Finding your parcel within Lincoln County
The atlas lists 26 cities, towns, townships, and Census communities associated with Lincoln County, including Sioux Falls, Dayton, Canton. The list includes overlapping geography types and does not divide the county into exclusive service areas.
Lincoln County by land and water
The Census records 0.46 square miles of water within Lincoln County, or 0.1% of its total area. That share is close to Lincoln County’s 0.1%. This is geographic context; waterfront status and usable land must be checked at the parcel.
For scale, Lincoln County has 16.3 times the land area of nearby Lynn township (35.4 square miles). These areas describe boundaries, not comparable property prices.
The Census boundary meets Clay County, Minnehaha County, Turner County, Union County within South Dakota. A tract near one of these lines should be matched to the county identifier on its own records.

