Buying Land in Ramsey County, North Dakota

Devils Lake: a closed-basin lake with one of the most severe flood cycles in the state

Devils Lake, which gives Ramsey County's county seat its name, sits in a closed drainage basin -- one without a natural outlet below roughly 1,459 feet in elevation, meaning that in a sustained wet cycle, the lake has nowhere to drain and simply keeps rising. That is exactly what happened starting in 1993: a multi-decade wet cycle pushed the lake up more than 25 feet within about a decade, from a low near 1,422.6 feet to roughly 1,454.3 feet by 2011, expanding the lake's surface area more than threefold and inundating well over 100,000 acres (some estimates put the figure closer to 160,000 acres, or about 250 square miles) of farmland, roads, and structures across the Devils Lake basin. Total documented damage across the basin exceeded $400 million.

The lake has come down somewhat from its roughly 2011 peak -- the most recent reading located during this research (a USGS gauge measurement of about 1,450.14 feet on November 11, 2025) sits several feet below that high point -- but it remains roughly 27 feet above where it stood in 1993 and still well below the approximately 1,459-foot level that would let it drain naturally toward the Red River system. In practical terms: this is not a crisis that resolved itself, it's an elevated, closed-basin lake that could rise again in a future wet cycle with nowhere for the water to go. Any parcel near the lake's current shoreline or within its documented historical high-water extent deserves a direct, current check of its specific elevation and FEMA flood-zone status -- don't rely on a listing description or an assumption that "the flood is over."

What severe flooding actually did to land here: a bought-out town and dozens of farmsteads

The scale of the Devils Lake flood cycle is best illustrated by what actually happened to specific places, not just elevation numbers. The town of Churches Ferry, within the Devils Lake basin, was largely acquired and removed under FEMA's Hazard Mitigation Grant Program at a cost of roughly $3.5 million -- an entire community effectively relocated rather than protected in place. Rural acquisitions also occurred: a Devils Lake Basin planning document describes roughly two dozen farmsteads bought out across Ramsey and neighboring Towner counties as part of the broader flood-mitigation response.

For a land buyer, this history matters in two practical ways. First, if a specific parcel or a neighboring one was part of a past buyout, that's important context about long-term flood risk at that location, even if the parcel itself is currently dry. Second, the existence of a formal, multi-jurisdictional body -- the Devils Lake Basin Joint Water Resources Board -- managing flood-related infrastructure and planning for the basin is itself a sign that this remains an actively-managed flood risk area, not a settled, historical event. Confirm directly with the county and, where relevant, that board whether a specific parcel has any buyout, easement, or flood-mitigation history attached to it.

Zoning: check with the specific city or township, not just the county

Ramsey County's own planning materials describe zoning as implemented at the city and township level rather than through one unified countywide ordinance the county itself administers -- a structural pattern similar to (though on a smaller scale than) Cass County's township-based zoning system described elsewhere on this site. Ramsey County does have older planning documents on file, including a 1973 comprehensive plan, and appears to have circulated at least one more recent draft zoning-ordinance update, but this page could not confirm from available sources whether a current, adopted, county-administered ordinance is now in effect for any part of the county. Before assuming any zoning rule applies to an unincorporated Ramsey County parcel, identify which township it sits in and confirm zoning status with that township directly, or with the City of Devils Lake if the parcel is inside or near city limits.