The City of Bismarck serves as the capital for North Dakota and is America’s 35th-most highly populated state capital city.

Bismarck may lack of universally accepted nickname, there are multiple monikers for North Dakota. These include the Peace Garden State, Roughrider State and Flickertail State–the latter referring to a breed of ground squirrels common in North Dakota.

North Dakota’s capital city hosts the Sam McQuade Sr Softball Tournament where 400 teams from the U.S. and Canada compete in the world’s biggest charity softball tournament.

Research website numbeo lacks sufficient data to rank North Dakota’s capital city on its comprehensive global quality of life rating which benchmarks 250 cities worldwide. Numbeo does evaluate Bismarck on several individual factors. For instance, Bismarck scores well on traffic commute time (number one fastest), safety (top 5%), pollution (cleanest 9%) and health care (best 22%). On the negative side, Bismarck rates relatively poorly for property price to income ratio (highest 30%).

Iconically reflecting the capital’s local weather and geography, Guinness World Records documents Bismarck as the site where the most people made snow angels at the same time. The record involved 8,962 participants at Bismarck’s State Capitol Grounds back on February 17, 2007.

The biggest employers in Bismarck are the State of North Dakota, non-profit health care provider Sandforth Health, St. Alexius Medical Center, Bismarck public schools and U.S. government offices, and insurer AETNA.

From an international trade perspective, North Dakota exported U$6.749 billion worth of goods around the globe in 2019. Its most valuable exports include crude petroleum oil (36.3% of North Dakota’s global total), light petroleum oils and preparations (29.3%), tractors (3.5%), corn (2.2%), wheat (2.1%), mechanical front-end shovel loaders (also 2.1%), liquor (1.4%), saturated acyclic hydrocarbons (1.2%), and low erucic acid seed (1%) according to United States Census Bureau data.

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for Bismarck was 5.4% at July 2020, up from 2.5% one year earlier.

Capital Facts for Bismarck, United States: Quick Reference

 
Bismarckers celebrate Independence Day as a national holiday each July 4.

Bismarck’s land area occupies 34.3 square miles (88.83 square kilometers). The state capital’s population was 74,162 Bismarckers at September 23, 2020.

At the state level, North Dakota covers a land area measuring 68,994 square miles (178,694 square kilometers) home to a population of 761,723 people.

Bismarck’s population density is more concentrated averaging 2,162 residents per square mile (835 per square kilometer).

Zooming out to North Dakota’s land boundaries, population density dilutes to an average 11 inhabitants per square mile (4 per square kilometer).