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Williston sits very close to the center of the Williston Basin, which is a leading domestic oil- and gas-producing region. Williston also sits atop the Bakken Formation, a vast deposit of shale deep in the ground within the Williston Basin. 

Today, the Bakken Formation is among the largest oil fields in the United States (Brown, 2013). Williston’s Bakken oil refers to the oil extracted from the Bakken Formation.

Williston, founded in 1887, was a small town in Williams County where the economy was based on agriculture and did not change much between the 1980s and 2005 (Polzin, 2017). It was known for decades that the Bakken Formation contained oil, but it remained out of reach of existing oil extraction techniques. 

In 2005, the United States was dependent on oil imports as domestic oil production was under 50% of U.S. petroleum consumption (Rapier, 2017). In 2007, Congress passed an initiative to move the United States toward greater energy independence, kickstarting the oil boom in western North Dakota (U.S. Congress, 2007). 

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The population in Williston doubled between 2010 and 2020. During that decade, there were highs and lows in the price of oil, which led directly to booms and busts in the oil fields. Oil is priced in the global market, and every time the price of oil drops, so does production, leading to reduced employment. As oil prices rise, new technologies are forged to reach places like the Bakken shale. With each bump up in the price of oil, there is a comparable bump in production as well as Williston population. The effect of world events such as the oil price wars with OPEC in 2014-2016 and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 rippled through Williston, affecting the production of oil and the population. 

The technology of hydraulic fracturing (fracking), combined with horizontal drilling, enabled the extraction of significant quantities of high-quality crude oil from the vast deep shale deposits in the Bakken. The “shale revolution” stimulated tremendous production and high oil prices (Brown, 2013). By 2008, drilling of new wells in North Dakota surged like never before. Oil production increased dramatically, and Williston’s Bakken oil became a significant factor in domestic energy production. By 2011-2012, the U.S. price of oil slightly topped the global price. This increase in domestic oil production helped to keep a lid on global oil prices (Rapier, 2025).

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Above is an animation of the Annual NLCD Impervious Descriptor product showing annual changes in roads and other impervious surfaces for Williams County, with the town of Williston in the south. The descriptor layer categorizes roads (blue) and other development (yellow). Across the county, the progression of new structures and well sites can be seen over time, extending east and west along the roads. Activity especially picks up in the mid-2000s.

This layer allows Annual NLCD users extra flexibility to manipulate and categorize the impervious surface by isolating the roads so other changes can be highlighted. This ultimately gives them the ability to more accurately identify the type of development occurring each year. 

In early 2008, there were fewer than 500 wells in the North Dakota portion of the Bakken Formation. By the end of the year, there were more than 850. Today, there are greater than 17,000 well sites (ND Dept. of Mineral Resources, 2025).  

Background photo: An aerial view near Williston, North Dakota, including an oil well pad (lower right). USGS photo by Seth Haines.