7204 131st Avenue Southwest

One of America's Last True Frontiers

Slope County, North Dakota doesn't just make the list of the least populated counties in America — it routinely tops it. With 795 residents spread across 1,220 square miles of badlands and shortgrass prairie in the state's extreme southwest corner, the population density sits at 0.65 people per square mile. For context, that's lonelier than the Sahara Desert's average habitation. This is the kind of place where your nearest neighbor might be a 20-minute drive away, where the horizon goes unbroken for miles, and where the data tells a story that no other county in America quite replicates.

Housing So Affordable It Barely Registers as a Market

At a median home value of $121,300 — less than 38% of the national median — Slope County property is priced more like a used pickup truck than a real estate asset. Yet this isn't a distressed market; it's simply a remote one. The price-to-income ratio comes in at roughly 1.9x household income, a figure that would make a San Francisco buyer weep with envy. With an 87.4% homeownership rate (nearly 20 points above the national average), almost everyone here owns, and rent burden is a near-nonexistent 7.0% — meaning renters spend almost nothing of their income on housing. When zero percent of renters face severe rent burden, you're looking at a housing market that functions almost frictionlessly, mainly because demand is simply never the issue.

Key Statistics

Stat	Value	Context
Median Home Value	$121,300	38% of the $320,000 national median
Homeownership Rate	87.4%	nearly 20 pts above national average
Price-to-Income Ratio	1.9x	vs. ~4x national benchmark
Vacancy Rate	25.8%	reflects outmigration and sparse demand

The Demographics of Staying Put

The median age of 54.2 and a 65-plus population share of 27.5% paint a picture of a county where young people have largely moved on — to Dickinson, Bismarck, or beyond — and those who remain have deep roots. The child poverty rate of just 1.4% is remarkable, suggesting the families still here are economically stable even if modest. What keeps people? Ranching and agriculture, primarily. The Walking the floor of the North Dakota badlands, this is Theodore Roosevelt country — rugged, self-reliant, and deeply tied to the land.

An Unexpected Data Puzzle

The mean household income of $30,115,500 against a median of $62,500 is a statistical thunderclap. With only 340 households, a single high-net-worth ranching operation or oil lease holder can mathematically detonate the mean. The Gini index of 0.470 — higher than the national average — confirms that wealth here is dramatically unequal despite the county's modest surface appearance. Slope County may look uniformly working-class, but a small number of landowners likely hold assets of extraordinary value.

The 16.3% limited English rate also stands out as unusual for this population profile, likely reflecting agricultural labor households.

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FAQs

What makes Slope County, North Dakota unique? Slope County is consistently one of the least populated counties in the entire United States, with fewer than 800 residents across over 1,200 square miles of badlands terrain. Its combination of near-zero housing costs, near-universal homeownership, and extreme geographic isolation makes it a genuinely singular place in American demography.

Is it cheap to buy a home in Slope County, ND? Extraordinarily so. With a median home value around $121,000 and a price-to-income ratio under 2x, Slope County offers some of the most affordable ownership conditions in the country — though the tradeoff is extreme remoteness, limited services, and a 25.8% housing vacancy rate that signals weak resale demand.

Why is income inequality so high in such a rural, sparsely populated county? In tiny counties like Slope, a handful of large landowners or mineral rights holders can dramatically skew income statistics. Agricultural land and oil and gas leases in western North Dakota can be enormously valuable, concentrating wealth among a very small number of households while the broader community lives on modest ranch and farm incomes.