Nordic, WY

Nordic is a census-designated place in Lincoln County, Wyoming, on U.S. Route 89 seven miles south of Alpine. The highway is the settlement's practical spine, carrying local trips through Star Valley and toward the larger communities along the valley. The 2010 census counted 602 residents, an older figure that gives a sense of Nordic's scale without standing in for a current population estimate.

Nordic sits within a county with sharply different landscapes: agricultural and partly forested country in the north, high desert and mineral country farther south. It is part of Lincoln County School District 2, whose schools and district offices are spread across the Star Valley communities and based in Afton. That arrangement places education and many civic trips along the same valley road network that connects Nordic with Alpine, Afton, and the communities between them. Nordic's local picture is therefore tied to a highway, a school district covering a broad rural area, and the larger agricultural valley around it.