10 Best Places to Retire in South Dakota

If you are looking for somewhere to retire in one of the quietest, most peaceful states of the United States, then this list of best places to retire in South Dakota might just be perfect for you!

South Dakota is the 5th least populous state of the country with the Missouri River running through it dividing it into two parts. This state, which houses the famous Mount Rushmore, is good news for retirees as it is a reasonably priced area with the cost of living index being 87.6 (2.4 percent below the US average).

When it comes to climate, this beautiful state has four distinct seasons, giving rise to hot summers, cold winters, and green springs. The Black Hills located in the southwest region enhance the beauty of these sunny days, making the place perfect for the outdoorsy types!

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To narrow down the cities to form our list of 10 best places to retire in South Dakota, we considered only those that have a population of 3,000 residents or more, taking population statistics from City-Data. We then ranked these cities based on the following factors (giving all of them equal importance and ranking the cities separately in each category to create, in the end, an average ranking), taking numbers from Sperling’s Best Places:

Cost of living – considering that a person living on a retirement fund is especially conscious about his or her expenses, we have taken this into account and selected cost of living index as one of the criteria for formulating our list.

Crime rate – safety is one of the most important factors when deciding to move to a new place. The higher the crime rate, the lower the city was ranked on our list.

Number of physicians per 100,000 population – for health care reasons, this is a useful factor to consider while deciding a place to retire.

Average commute time – no one wants to drive for ages just to get to the grocery store, especially not a retiree. Therefore, cities with lower commute times were placed higher in the following list.

Now that you know how the cities have been positioned, let’s move on to the actual ranking! However, if you’ve got the wrong Dakota, you can also visit our article on 10 best places to retire in North Dakota! Let’s finally start the countdown!