State guide
South Dakota Nature Guide
South Dakota straddles the Missouri River, splitting cleanly into the rolling mixedgrass and tallgrass prairie of the east and the more arid badlands, buttes, and pine-forested Black Hills of the west. It is a state of grouse leks and booming prairie-chickens, of bison herds in Custer State Park and bighorn sheep in Badlands National Park, and of one of the continent's great spectacles — millions of snow geese funneling up the Missouri each spring. The continental, semi-arid climate of USDA zones 3b through 5a brings ferocious winters, brief explosive springs, and big, dark skies over country where the horizon runs unbroken for miles.
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