North Dakota
Buying Land in Slope County, North Dakota
North Dakota's least populous county sits in badlands ranching country along the Montana border, where private ranch land runs up against a real chunk of the Little Missouri National Grassland -- and where a handful of courthouse staff in Amidon (population under 20) handle zoning, recording, and tax equalization for the entire county.
Zoning and county government: real, but running on a very small staff
Slope County has adopted a zoning ordinance, and it maintains a Planning Administrator/Director position -- a real, named role handling zoning questions for the county, based out of the county offices on Main Street in Amidon. What's different here from a larger county isn't the existence of zoning so much as the scale of the office behind it: with a population under 700 spread across a county of roughly 1,000 square miles, the practical reality is that county government is a small number of people wearing multiple hats. The zoning administrator role, the recorder's office, and the tax equalization office are all separately staffed but housed together, and a buyer should expect direct, personal contact with named county staff rather than a multi-department bureaucracy.
Before relying on any secondhand description of what's permitted on a specific parcel, confirm directly with the Planning Administrator's office what zoning district applies, what setbacks and permitted uses look like, and whether any permit is required for the specific use you're planning -- a homesite, an outbuilding, or a change from grazing to another use.
The Little Missouri National Grassland: real federal and grazing-association presence, not a full inventory
A meaningful share of far-western Slope County sits within the boundary of the Little Missouri National Grassland, the largest national grassland in the country at just over a million acres, administered by the U.S. Forest Service as part of the Dakota Prairie Grasslands. Slope County is one of four counties the grassland spans (alongside McKenzie, Billings, and Golden Valley), with its portion here concentrated in the county's northern and western sections. Within the grassland boundary, land ownership is genuinely mixed rather than uniformly federal: real pockets of state-owned school trust land and private ranch land sit inside the same boundary as Forest Service surface land, and grazing on much of it -- both the federal and non-federal portions -- is administered day-to-day by local grazing associations (established under a 1938 state law, later working under agreement with the Forest Service) rather than directly by federal rangers.
For a buyer, this means a parcel's location inside the grassland's mapped boundary does not by itself tell you whether that specific parcel is federal, state, or private land, or whether it carries an active grazing-association permit or lease. This site was not able to confirm a precise, sourced percentage of Slope County's total land area that is privately held versus federal versus state -- if you see a specific figure cited elsewhere, treat it with the same caution and verify directly with the Forest Service's Dakota Prairie Grasslands office and the county's own GIS/recorder records for any specific parcel of interest.
Who to Call Before Buying Land in Slope County
This site could not confirm a dedicated GIS/parcel-mapping contact, agricultural extension office, or septic/environmental-health department specific to Slope County -- given the county's very small population, these functions may be handled informally through the same courthouse staff listed above, through a regional health unit, or through NDSU Extension's shared regional staffing, none of which this research could confirm with a direct, verifiable phone number. Ask the Slope County offices above who currently handles septic permitting and GIS/parcel-map requests rather than assuming a dedicated office exists. For questions specific to the Little Missouri National Grassland itself (grazing permits, federal parcel boundaries), contact the U.S. Forest Service's Dakota Prairie Grasslands office directly rather than the county.
Planning & Zoning
Slope County Planning Administrator / Director
Zoning district, setback, and permitted-use questions for a specific Slope County parcel; this office is a combined role given the county's small size.
Recorder / Clerk / Land Records
Slope County Recorder
Recorded deed, plat, and title history for a specific parcel.
Assessor / Property Tax
Slope County Tax Equalization
Current assessed value and property tax questions for a specific parcel.
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Get local guidanceTopics Specific to Slope County
Sources
- Slope County, North Dakota — Wikipedia (Census-sourced figures) (accessed 2026-09)
- U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts: Slope County, North Dakota — U.S. Census Bureau (accessed 2026-09)
- Zoning - Slope County, ND — Slope County, North Dakota Government (accessed 2026-09)
- Slope County — North Dakota Department of Environmental Quality (accessed 2026-09)
- Little Missouri National Grassland — Wikipedia (accessed 2026-09)
- Dakota Prairie Grasslands: Little Missouri National Grassland — USDA Forest Service (accessed 2026-09)
Last reviewed 2026-09