The Mount Rushmore State
South Dakota is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux tribes, who compose a large portion of the population and historically dominated the territory. South Dakota is the 17th largest by area, but the fifth smallest by population and the 5th least densely populated of the 50 states. As the southern part of the former Dakota Territory, South Dakota became a state on 2 November 1889, simultaneously with North Dakota. Pierre is the state capital and Sioux Falls, with a population of about 183,200, is South Dakota's largest city.
Geographical type: Territory
Latitude: 44.5° N — Longitude: 100° W
Area: 199,729 km²
ISO 3166-2 code: US-SD
Birthplace of
Rose Wilder Lane, Rose Wilder, in De Smet, on 5 Dec 1886
Measures of Freedom
Freedom in the 50 States, Freedom in the 50 States
2023: Overall rank: 3, economic freedom: 3, fiscal policy: 3, regulatory policy: 3, personal freedom: 21
2023: Overall rank: 3, economic freedom: 3, fiscal policy: 3, regulatory policy: 3, personal freedom: 21
LP State-by-State Membership Numbers [PDF], Libertarian Party News, Apr 2006
31 Dec 2005: Number of Members: 29
31 Dec 2005: Number of Members: 29
Articles
Booze Busting: The New Prohibition, by James Bovard, Freedom Daily, Dec 1998
Discusses various anti-alcohol laws and enforcement actions, including the law raising the minimum drinking age during the Reagan administration, and what medical research has to say about moderate alcohol consumption
Discusses various anti-alcohol laws and enforcement actions, including the law raising the minimum drinking age during the Reagan administration, and what medical research has to say about moderate alcohol consumption
Congress voted to withhold 10 percent of federal highway construction funds from states that refused to ... raise their drinking age to 21 ... [H]ighway construction funds come from the user taxes [on] gasoline ... South Dakota sued the U.S. government over the law, and the case was eventually decided by the Supreme Court. (Gov. George Mickelson denounced the law as "blackmail.") South Dakota in the early 1980s launched its own anti-drunk-driving campaign and had already sharply reduced the number of young people involved in drunk driving fatalities, and saw no need to slash the drinking age.
The introductory paragraph uses material from the Wikipedia article "South Dakota" as of 3 Nov 2018, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.