Tower Landlord

States / South Dakota

SD · #39 of 51 by structures

Cell towers in South Dakota

South Dakota has 949 constructed antenna structures in the FCC registry — 1% of the national total and number 39 of 51. The most common kind is the tower (42%), the median overall height is 285 feet, and 66% stand taller than 200 feet. The largest owner is Crown Castle, with 128 structures (13%).

Look up towers Value a buyout offer

1234
  1. 1Constructed structures 949
  2. 2Median height 285 ft
  3. 3Largest owner Crown Castle
  4. 4Counties with a county page 42
Minnehaha County95Pennington County52Brown County40Brookings County39Lincoln County31Codington County29Yankton County23Stanley County22Lyman County21Davison County20
Constructed FCC-registered structures in South Dakota's ten counties with the most, bars to scale. Source: FCC ASR, October 2026.

Who owns South Dakota's towers

The FCC registry names the owner of each structure. In South Dakota the eight largest owner groups hold 430 of the 949 structures. Where a tower stands on leased land, that owner — or whoever bought the tower from it — is usually the landowner's tenant and the party a lease buyout offer is ultimately about.

Crown Castle128CommNet Cellular Inc.121American Tower61South Dakota Network, LLC33SBA Communications26NorthWestern Corporation21BIT/State Radio Communicatio21Octagon Towers19
Constructed structures in South Dakota by owner group, bars to scale. Families group registrant names carrying the brand; private owners' names are withheld. Source: FCC ASR.

Types and age

More of South Dakota's registered structures went up in the 2010s than in any other decade (38%). A tower's age matters to a landowner because a ground lease runs for a set term plus renewals: the older the tower, the more of that term has been used, and the fewer years of rent are left to value when an offer arrives.

Tower403Guyed tower232Lattice tower127Monopole77Other or unspecified55Pole37On a building7Mast6Water tank5
Constructed structures in South Dakota by type, bars to scale. Source: FCC ASR structure types.
101950s241960s551970s471980s1551990s1672000s3652010s1202020s
Structures in South Dakota by decade built (1950s on), columns to scale. Source: FCC ASR construction dates.

Every county

Aurora County 9Beadle County 17Bennett County 7Bon Homme County 11Brookings County 39Brown County 40Brule County 9Buffalo County 5Butte County 8Campbell County 5Charles Mix County 10Clark County 17Clay County 18Codington County 29Corson County 13Custer County 14Davison County 20Day County 10Deuel County 12Dewey County 12Douglas County 2Edmunds County 7Fall River County 11Faulk County 6Grant County 14Gregory County 11Haakon County 11Hamlin County 4Hand County 9Hanson County 7Harding County 9Hughes County 20Hutchinson County 8Hyde County 11Jackson County 16Jerauld County 7Jones County 12Kingsbury County 13Lake County 16Lawrence County 20Lincoln County 31Lyman County 21Marshall County 6McCook County 11McPherson County 5Meade County 20Mellette County 6Miner County 7Minnehaha County 95Moody County 3Oglala Lakota County (formerly Shannon) 11Pennington County 52Perkins County 10Potter County 11Roberts County 11Sanborn County 7Spink County 11Stanley County 22Sully County 4Todd County 6Tripp County 11Turner County 14Union County 15Walworth County 12Yankton County 23Ziebach County 5

Counties with fewer than 10 structures have no page of their own; their towers are in the lookup.

Source: FCC Antenna Structure Registration, weekly public access file (r_tower.zip, created 2026-10-18); county names from the U.S. Census Bureau 2024 gazetteer. Checked 2026-10-23. Methodology.