Bison, SD population, income and ZIP codes

Bison town is a very small community in South Dakota, with 419 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #171 of 485 ranked by population — larger than 64% of them. The median age here is 46.8 years against 39.1 nationally, a markedly older profile that usually tracks retirees staying put and younger households leaving for work. At this population the ACS sample is small, so the margin of error around every dollar figure below is wide — treat the numbers as a band, not a point, and expect them to move between annual releases without the place itself changing.

Households in Bison town earn a median of $62,273 a year, 20.7% below the national figure of $78,538 and 5% below the $65,500 median for the 79 South Dakota cities we cover. Median household income counts every pre-tax dollar arriving at an address — wages, self-employment, Social Security, pensions, interest and public assistance — for everyone living there, so multi-earner households pull the figure up even where individual pay is modest. Poverty reaches 4.8% of residents here, less than half the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in Bison town is valued at $72,300, 76.2% below the national figure and 62% below the $192,800 peer median, while median gross rent runs $943 a month, 32.9% below the national figure, or roughly $11,316 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 18.2% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is cheap relative to what people here earn. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 1.2×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so purchase prices are unusually low against local pay, the pattern in places where supply is plentiful and wage growth has been flat. 77.7% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans toward owners. The rent line includes utilities paid by the tenant, a definition worth remembering when comparing it against a landlord's quoted rate.

With 419 residents, a handful of survey responses moves every median on this page. Compare Bison town against its county rather than against national figures.

No figure on this page is estimated by us; each one comes straight from the published ACS tables for this area. Small-area estimates still carry wider margins of error than state or national figures, so check the linked ACS tables before relying on them for lending, appraisal or legal work.