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Nearest Communities to Ames,
Listed County-By-County

The purpose of this page is to identify those communities that are closest to Ames, on a County-by-County basis. To explain further, let's use the example from the Genealogy Helper Page for Ames:

We have great-grandparents who lived in a small community in the southeast corner of their home county. During their lives, most hospitals and doctors were in the next county to the east. Almost all of the nearby churches and cemeteries were in the county to the south.

When doing our research, we make it a practice to expand our search by looking in neighboring counties in addition to the county in which they lived:  their home county contained property and probate records; the county to the east contained birth and death records; the county to the south contained their burial records. If we hadn't checked the neighboring counties, we would have missed many valuable sources of information.

Please note that when we give a distance, it's a 'straight-line' distance from Ames.<1>

If you're researching your genealogy, we hope that the following information helps.

Ames is located in Hand County.

The following 6 counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Hand County: Beadle, Buffalo, Faulk, Hyde, Jerauld & Spink.

Our Gazetteer shows that there are 26 communities within 40 miles [64.4 km]<1> of Ames. Of these communities, 18 are located in counties other than Hand County.

We usually exclude communities where we still need to verify their location,<2> but for the purpose of this page, we have included the unverified ('unver') and historic ('hist') communities.

After starting with the home county for Ames (which is Hand County), we list the counties in alphabetical order and for each of those counties, the closest communities are listed in order of their distance from Ames

For the following list, only those counties that contain communities within 40 miles [64.4 km] are displayed.

  • Hand County   (where Ames resides)
    • County Seat for Hand:   Miller
    • Genealogy Websites   ...
    • Nearest Communities to Ames   ...
      • These communities are listed by their distance from Ames.
      • Sweetland ‑ Historic
        (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northeast)
        • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Sweetland have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
        • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sweetland
        • Sweetland is located in Hand County
      • Danforth
        (9 miles [14.5 km] to the east)
        • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Danforth have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
        • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Danforth
        • Danforth is located in Hand County
      • Miller Dale Colony
        (9 miles [14.5 km] to the north)
        • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Miller Dale Colony have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
        • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Miller Dale Colony
        • Miller Dale Colony is located in Hand County
      • Ree Heights
        (17 miles [27.4 km] to the north)
      • Miller
        (18 miles [29 km] to the north)
      • Saint Lawrence
        (18 miles [29 km] to the north)
        • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Saint Lawrence have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
        • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Saint Lawrence
        • Saint Lawrence is located in Hand County
        • Population from the 2020 Census: 181 people
        • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Saint Lawrence <4>
      • Vayland
        (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northeast)
        • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Vayland have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
        • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Vayland
        • Vayland is located in Hand County
      • Florence ‑ Historic
        (29 miles [46.7 km] to the north)
        • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Florence have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
        • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Florence
        • Florence is located in Hand County
        • Estimated population in 2014: 374 people
  • Beadle County
  • Brule County
    • County Seat for Brule:   Chamberlain
    • Genealogy Websites   ...
    • Nearest Communities to Ames   ...
      • These communities are listed by their distance from Ames.
      • Grosse
        (25 miles [40.2 km] to the southwest)
        • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Grosse have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
        • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Grosse
        • Grosse is located in Brule County
      • Lyonville
        (27 miles [43.5 km] to the south)
        • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Lyonville have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
        • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lyonville
        • Lyonville is located in Brule County
        • Estimated population in 2014: 49 people
  • Buffalo County
    • County Seat for Buffalo:   Gann Valley
    • Genealogy Websites   ...
    • Nearest Communities to Ames   ...
      • These communities are listed by their distance from Ames.
      • Gann Valley
        (16 miles [25.7 km] to the south)
      • Lees Corner
        (17 miles [27.4 km] to the southwest)
        • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Lees Corner have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
        • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lees Corner
        • Lees Corner is located in Buffalo County
      • Crow Creek
        (22 miles [35.4 km] to the south)
        • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Crow Creek. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<5>
        • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Crow Creek
        • Crow Creek is located in Buffalo County
        • Google driving directions:
        • From your current location to Crow Creek
        • From Ames to Crow Creek
      • Shelby
        (22 miles [35.4 km] to the south)
        • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Shelby have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
        • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Shelby
        • Shelby is located in Buffalo County
        • Estimated population in 2014: 96 people
      • Fort Thompson
        (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southwest)
        • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Fort Thompson have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
        • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Fort Thompson
        • Fort Thompson is located in Buffalo County
        • Population from the 2010 Census: 1,282 people
        • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Fort Thompson <4>
  • Hyde County
    • County Seat for Hyde:   Highmore
    • Genealogy Websites   ...
    • Nearest Communities to Ames   ...
      • These communities are listed by their distance from Ames.
      • Macs Corner
        (17 miles [27.4 km] to the west)
        • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Macs Corner have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
        • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Macs Corner
        • Macs Corner is located in Hyde County
      • Stephan
        (18 miles [29 km] to the west)
      • Bramhall ‑ Historic
        (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northwest)
        • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Bramhall have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
        • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bramhall
        • Bramhall is located in Hyde County
      • Highmore
        (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northwest)
      • Holabird
        (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northwest)
  • Jerauld County
  • Lyman County
    • County Seat for Lyman:   Kennebec
    • Genealogy Websites   ...
    • Nearest Communities to Ames   ...
      • These communities are listed by their distance from Ames.
      • Lower Brule
        (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southwest)
        • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Lower Brule have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
        • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lower Brule
        • Lower Brule is located in Lyman County
        • Population from the 2010 Census: 24 people
        • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Lower Brule <4>
      • Council House
        (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southwest)
        • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Council House have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
        • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Council House
        • Council House is located in Lyman County

Footnotes ...

<1>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'point-to-point' distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Ames) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Ames. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 44.2690, Longitude: -99.0846    
<2>Our data comes from many sources and some sources are more dependable than others. When we add communities to our Gazetteer, we try to verify that we have the correct location for the community. We mark a community as 'Unverified' when we aren't confident about our data and want to do further checking.

We use the term 'Historic' broadly and it generally means that the community no longer exists. However, it can also mean that the community might still exist, but was larger or had a more 'official' existence in the past than it does now.

Since our Gazetteer contains over 100,000 communities, verifying everything is going to take time. If you find an error or can help us to improve our accuracy, please let us know.
<3>The location has been supplied by the Geographic Names Information System - which is maintained by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). While these values should be definitive, we found that accuracy can vary and you should double-check the location if accuracy is required.
<4>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<5>An 'estimated' location is one where we have been given GPS coordinates, but are unable to verify the accuracy of those coordinates. That said, we have some confidence that we have placed the marker near the actual location. A typical reason for being unable to verify a location is that it might be on private property or maybe historic and gone without an obvious trace.




 

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This page was last modified/updated: 21 Mar 2025