|area_code = 605
|blank_name = FIPS code
|blank_info = 46-59020
|blank1_name = GNIS feature ID
|blank1_info = 1267566
|blank_name_sec1 = Sales tax
|blank_info_sec1 = 6.2%
|website =
|footnotes =
Sioux Falls ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of South Dakota. It is the county seat of Minnehaha County and also extends into northern Lincoln County. The population was 192,517 at the 2020 census (estimated at 209,289 in 2024). Chartered in 1856 on the banks of the Big Sioux River, the city is situated in rolling hills at the junction of Interstates 29 and 90.
History
thumb|left|Looking south on Main Avenue
thumb|left|Sioux Falls in October 1943
Sioux Falls's history revolves around the cascades of the Big Sioux River. The falls were created about 14,000 years ago during the last ice age. The lure of the falls has been a powerful influence. Ho-Chunk, Ioway, Otoe, Missouria, Omaha (and Ponca at the time), Quapaw, Kansa, Osage, Arikara, Sioux, and Cheyenne people first inhabited the region. Numerous burial mounds remain on the high bluffs near the river and are spread throughout the vicinity. Indigenous people maintained an agricultural society with fortified villages, and later arrivals rebuilt on many of the sites that were previously settled. Lakota still populate urban and reservation communities in the state and many Lakota, Dakota, and numerous other Indigenous Americans reside in Sioux Falls.
French voyagers/explorers visited the area in the early 18th century. The first documented visit by an American of European descent was by Philander Prescott, who camped overnight at the falls in December 1832. Captain James Allen led a military expedition out of Fort Des Moines in 1844. Jacob Ferris described the Falls in his 1856 book The States and Territories of the Great West.
Two separate groups, the Dakota Land Company of St. Paul and the Western Town Company of Dubuque, Iowa, organized in 1856 to claim the land around the falls, considered a promising townsite for its beauty and waterpower. Each laid out claims, but worked together for mutual protection. They built a temporary barricade of turf that they dubbed "Fort Sod" in response to native tribes attempting to defend their land from the settlers. Seventeen men then spent "the first winter" in Sioux Falls. The next year, the population grew to near 40.
Although conflicts in Minnehaha County between Native Americans and white settlers were few, the Dakota War of 1862 engulfed nearby southwestern Minnesota. The town was evacuated in August 1862 when two local settlers were killed as a result of the conflict. The settlers and soldiers stationed there traveled to Yankton in late August. The abandoned townsite was pillaged and burned.
Fort Dakota, a military reservation established in present-day downtown, was established in May 1865. Many former settlers gradually returned and a new wave of settlers arrived in the following years. The population grew to 593 by 1873, and a building boom was underway in that year. The Village of Sioux Falls, consisting of , was incorporated in 1876 and granted a city charter by the Dakota Territorial legislature on March 3, 1883.
The arrival of the railroads ushered in the great Dakota Boom decade of the 1880s. Sioux Falls's population grew from 2,164 in 1880 to 10,167 in 1889, transforming the city. A severe plague of grasshoppers and a national depression halted the boom by the early 1890s. The city grew by only 89 people from 1890 to 1900.
In the 1890s Sioux Falls became a destination for women seeking divorce, as it had some of the nation's most permissive divorce laws and was accessible by rail. It was known as the "Divorce Colony" and remained a popular venue for divorces until South Dakota changed its residency requirements in 1908.
Prosperity eventually returned with the opening of the John Morrell meat packing plant in 1909, the establishment of an airbase and a military radio and communications training school in 1942, and the completion of the interstate highways in the early 1960s. Much of the growth in the first part of the 20th century was fueled by agriculturally based industry, such as the Morrell plant and the nearby stockyards (one of the largest in the nation).
In 1955 the city consolidated the neighboring incorporated city of South Sioux Falls. At the time South Sioux Falls had a population of nearly 1,600. It was the county's third-largest city after Sioux Falls and Dell Rapids. On October 18, 1955, South Sioux Falls residents voted to consolidate with Sioux Falls. On November 15, Sioux Falls residents also voted to consolidate.
In 1981, to take advantage of recently relaxed state usury laws, Citibank relocated its primary credit card center from New York City to Sioux Falls. Some claim that this is the main reason for the increased population and job growth rates that Sioux Falls has experienced since. Others say that Citibank's relocation was only part of a more general transformation of the city's economy from industrially based to one centered on health care, finance, and retail trade.
Sioux Falls has grown rapidly since the late 1970s, with the population more than doubling from 81,182 in 1980 to 192,517 in 2020.
Then-President Bill Clinton made his final stop of the 1996 presidential campaign in Sioux Falls.
2019 tornadoes
On the night of September 10, 2019, the south side of Sioux Falls was hit by three strong EF2 tornadoes, severely damaging at least 37 buildings, including the Plaza 41 Shopping Center. One tornado hit the Avera Heart Hospital, damaging parts of the roof and windows and injuring seven people, including a man who fractured his skull as he was thrown into an exterior wall of the hospital. Another tornado hit the commercial district near the Empire Mall, injuring one woman inside her home. Another touched down on the far south side in a suburban residential area, tearing the roofs off homes. The total damage was more than $5 million.
Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of , of which is land and is water. The city is in extreme eastern South Dakota, about west of the Minnesota border.
Metropolitan area
The Sioux Falls Metropolitan Statistical Area consists of four South Dakota counties (Lincoln, McCook, Minnehaha, and Turner) and one Minnesota county (Rock). The estimated population of this MSA in 2022 was 289,592, an increase of 4.6% from the 2020 census. In addition to Sioux Falls, the metropolitan area includes Canton, Brandon, Dell Rapids, Tea, Harrisburg, Worthing, Beresford, Lennox, Hartford, Crooks, Baltic, Montrose, Salem, Renner, Rowena, Chancellor, Colton, Humboldt, Parker, Hurley, Garretson, Sherman, Corson, Viborg, Irene, Centerville, Luverne, Hills, and Beaver Creek.
Climate
thumb|right|Climate chart for Sioux Falls
Due to its inland location and relatively high latitude, Sioux Falls has a humid continental climate (Köppen Dfa, bordering on Dwa) characterized by hot, humid summers and cold, dry winters. It is in USDA Plant Hardiness Zone 5a. The monthly daily average temperature ranges from in January to in July; there are 15 days of maximums at or above and 25 days with minimums at or below annually. 1991–2020 normals, extremes 1893–present
|single line = Y
|Jan record high F = 66
|Feb record high F = 70
|Mar record high F = 89
|Apr record high F = 98
|May record high F = 104
|Jun record high F = 110
|Jul record high F = 110
|Aug record high F = 109
|Sep record high F = 104
|Oct record high F = 95
|Nov record high F = 82
|Dec record high F = 63
|year record high F = 110
|Jan avg record high F = 47.4
|Feb avg record high F = 53.1
|Mar avg record high F = 70.4
|Apr avg record high F = 82.2
|May avg record high F = 87.7
|Jun avg record high F = 93.4
|Jul avg record high F = 94.7
|Aug avg record high F = 93.7
|Sep avg record high F = 89.7
|Oct avg record high F = 81.8
|Nov avg record high F = 66.7
|Dec avg record high F = 50.1
|year avg record high F = 96.8
|Jan high F = 27.2
|Feb high F = 32.0
|Mar high F = 45.0
|Apr high F = 59.0
|May high F = 70.8
|Jun high F = 80.9
|Jul high F = 85.3
|Aug high F = 82.8
|Sep high F = 75.6
|Oct high F = 61.1
|Nov high F = 45.0
|Dec high F = 31.6
|year high F = 58.0
|Jan mean F = 17.9
|Feb mean F = 22.3
|Mar mean F = 34.7
|Apr mean F = 47.2
|May mean F = 59.1
|Jun mean F = 69.9
|Jul mean F = 74.4
|Aug mean F = 72.0
|Sep mean F = 63.8
|Oct mean F = 49.6
|Nov mean F = 34.8
|Dec mean F = 22.5
|year mean F = 47.4
|Jan low F = 8.5
|Feb low F = 12.6
|Mar low F = 24.3
|Apr low F = 35.5
|May low F = 47.5
|Jun low F = 58.8
|Jul low F = 63.4
|Aug low F = 61.1
|Sep low F = 51.9
|Oct low F = 38.1
|Nov low F = 24.5
|Dec low F = 13.4
|year low F = 36.6
|Jan avg record low F = -16.0
|Feb avg record low F = -10.1
|Mar avg record low F = -0.6
|Apr avg record low F = 18.1
|May avg record low F = 31.1
|Jun avg record low F = 44.4
|Jul avg record low F = 49.4
|Aug avg record low F = 47.4
|Sep avg record low F = 33.7
|Oct avg record low F = 19.8
|Nov avg record low F = 4.4
|Dec avg record low F = -9.3
|year avg record low F = -19.2
|Jan record low F = −38
|Feb record low F = −42
|Mar record low F = −23
|Apr record low F = 4
|May record low F = 17
|Jun record low F = 32
|Jul record low F = 34
|Aug record low F = 34
|Sep record low F = 13
|Oct record low F = −5
|Nov record low F = −17
|Dec record low F = −31
|year record low F = -42
|precipitation colour = green
|Jan precipitation inch = 0.60
|Feb precipitation inch = 0.83
|Mar precipitation inch = 1.60
|Apr precipitation inch = 3.00
|May precipitation inch = 3.86
|Jun precipitation inch = 4.23
|Jul precipitation inch = 3.25
|Aug precipitation inch = 3.34
|Sep precipitation inch = 2.73
|Oct precipitation inch = 2.36
|Nov precipitation inch = 1.22
|Dec precipitation inch = 0.83
|year precipitation inch = 27.85
|Jan snow inch = 8.0
|Feb snow inch = 8.6
|Mar snow inch = 7.2
|Apr snow inch = 5.1
|May snow inch = 0.1
|Jun snow inch = 0.0
|Jul snow inch = 0.0
|Aug snow inch = 0.0
|Sep snow inch = 0.0
|Oct snow inch = 1.4
|Nov snow inch = 6.2
|Dec snow inch = 8.7
|year snow inch = 45.3
|unit precipitation days = 0.01 in
|Jan precipitation days = 7.0
|Feb precipitation days = 7.0
|Mar precipitation days = 8.2
|Apr precipitation days = 10.2
|May precipitation days = 12.1
|Jun precipitation days = 11.8
|Jul precipitation days = 9.0
|Aug precipitation days = 9.4
|Sep precipitation days = 8.1
|Oct precipitation days = 7.9
|Nov precipitation days = 6.2
|Dec precipitation days = 7.0
|year precipitation days = 103.9
|unit snow days = 0.1 in
|Jan snow days = 7.3
|Feb snow days = 6.8
|Mar snow days = 5.1
|Apr snow days = 2.2
|May snow days = 0.1
|Jun snow days = 0.0
|Jul snow days = 0.0
|Aug snow days = 0.0
|Sep snow days = 0.0
|Oct snow days = 0.9
|Nov snow days = 3.5
|Dec snow days = 6.9
|year snow days = 32.8
|Jan humidity = 71.7
|Feb humidity = 73.3
|Mar humidity = 72.1
|Apr humidity = 64.5
|May humidity = 63.5
|Jun humidity = 65.4
|Jul humidity = 65.4
|Aug humidity = 67.9
|Sep humidity = 69.5
|Oct humidity = 67.2
|Nov humidity = 73.4
|Dec humidity = 75.5
|year humidity = 69.1
|Jan dew point C = −14.2
|Feb dew point C = −10.8
|Mar dew point C = −4.8
|Apr dew point C = 0.9
|May dew point C = 7.1
|Jun dew point C = 12.9
|Jul dew point C = 15.9
|Aug dew point C = 14.9
|Sep dew point C = 9.7
|Oct dew point C = 2.7
|Nov dew point C = −4.2
|Dec dew point C = −11.1
|year dew point C = 1.6
|Jan uv = 1
|Feb uv = 2
|Mar uv = 4
|Apr uv = 5
|May uv = 7
|Jun uv = 8
|Jul uv = 9
|Aug uv = 8
|Sep uv = 6
|Oct uv = 3
|Nov uv = 2
|Dec uv = 1
| source 1 = NOAA (relative humidity and dew point 1961–1990)
|source 2 = Weather Atlas (UV index)