Cherry County, Nebraska  Cherry County is a county in the U.S. state of Nebraska. As of the 2010 United States Census, the population was 5,713. Its county seat is Valentine. The county was named for Lt. Samuel A. Cherry, an Army officer who was stationed at Fort Niobrara and who had been killed in South Dakota in 1881. Cherry County is in the Nebraska Sandhills. It is the largest county in the state. In the Nebraska license plate system, Cherry County is represented by the prefix 66 (it had the 66th-largest number of vehicles registered in the state when the license plate system was established in 1922). Cherry County lies on the north side of Nebraska. Its north boundary line abuts the south boundary line of the state of South Dakota. According to the US Census Bureau, the county has an area of , of which is land and (0.8%) is water. It is by far Nebraska's largest county in land area and larger than the state of Connecticut, or the states of Delaware and Rhode Island combined. The county is in Nebraska's Sandhills region; the dunes that give the region its name are a result of the most recent glacial period, the Pinedale glaciation. During the Holocene glacial retreat the sand dunes, which had been deposited in their current location by the vast continental glaciers, were exposed and grasses eventually took over. Owing to its size as Nebraska's largest county by area, Cherry County borders 11 counties, more than any other county in Nebraska. Seven of them are in Nebraska and four are in South Dakota. The adjacent counties are:  As of the 2000 United States Census, of 2000, there were 6,148 people, 2,508 households, and 1,710 families in the county. The population density was 1.02 people per square mile (0.39/km²). There were 3,220 housing units at an average density of 0 per square mile (0/km²). The racial makeup of the county was 94.19% White, 0.07% Black or African American, 3.25% Native American, 0.42% Asian, 0.02% Pacific Islander, 0.33% from other races, and 1.72% from two or more races. 0.93% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. 38.5% were of German, 12.6% English, 11.1% Irish and 7.3% American ancestry.