It's not as big as San Francisco, Omaha, Tampa, Des Moines, Minneapolis, Seattle, or St. Louis, but Pierre, South Dakota is standing side-by-side with those large cities on a new list.

Kiplinger looked at the best places in each of the 50 states to retire early (after age 40) and they had a lot of nice things to say about the Mount Rushmore State's capital city:

Capital city Pierre, situated on the Missouri River, is a nice place to settle in the Mount Rushmore state, particularly for fisherman and hunters. Lake Oahe, Lake Sharpe and smaller surrounding lakes offer anglers year round action. And nearby Fort Pierre National Grassland consists of 116,000 acres of federal land, where hunters can bag pheasants, prairie chickens and sharp-tail grouse, as well as waterfowl, white-tail deer and wild turkeys.

Nearly 30 percent of Pierre's close to 22,000 inhabitants are between the ages of 45 to 64 with a median income of $71,807.

The cost of living for Pierre retirees in that age range is 2.5% below the national average

Mental Floss took things one step further, whittling the Kiplinger list from 50 to 25.

25 of the Best Places to Retire Early

  • Huntsville, Alabama
  • Lake Havasu City, Arizona
  • San Francisco, California
  • New Milford, Connecticut
  • Tampa, Florida
  • Kapaa, Hawaii
  • Champaign-Urbana, Illinois
  • Des Moines, Iowa
  • Lousiville, Kentucky
  • Portland, Maine
  • Pittsfield, Massachusetts
  • Minneapolis, Minnesota
  • St. Louis, Missouri
  • Omaha, Nebraska
  • Manchester, New Hampshire
  • Albuquerque, New Mexico
  • Raleigh, North Carolina
  • Cincinnati, Ohio
  • Portland, Oregon
  • Providence, Rhode Island
  • Pierre, South Dakota
  • Sherman, Texas
  • Burlington, Vermont
  • Seattle, Washington
  • Green Bay, Wisconsin

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