South Dakota South Dakota South Dakota () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux Native American tribes, who compose a large portion of the population and historically dominated the territory. South Dakota is the seventeenth largest by area, but the fifth smallest by population and the 5th least densely populated of the 50 United States. As the southern part of the former Dakota Territory, South Dakota became a state on November 2, 1889, simultaneously with North Dakota. Pierre is the state capital and Sioux Falls, with a population
South Dakota State University Among alumni who are political figures are seven members of Congress, most notably Majority Leader of the United States Senate, Tom Daschle and first American Indian member of Congress Ben Reifel. Alumni of South Dakota State have occupied top positions in Wall Street and the rest of the business world, including CEO of Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, Nizar Al-Adsani. In science and technology, alumni include IBM 360 inventor Gene Amdahl, "father of Amdahl's law", and Nobel laureate Theodore Schultz, "father of Human Capital Theory." South Dakota State University South Dakota State University is a public research university in Brookings, South Dakota,