Red Shirt is located just past the east end of SD 40, which becomes BIA Highway 41 at the bridge over the Cheyenne River (boundary between Custer County and Oglala Lakota County and of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

The built-up area of the community, including Red Shirt School, is located on the flats of the valley of the Cheyenne River, below the north end of Red Shirt Table, a prominent feature of the landscape of northwestern Oglala Lakota County.

[3] In 2009, the village consisted of approximately 23 houses (including some mobile homes) in two clusters (Upper and Lower Red Shirt), the Red Shirt School (both the modern (constructed 2005–2008) with two large domes, and the older school buildings), a dance ring, sports fields, several community buildings, and a sewage plant.

The community is the closest on Pine Ridge Reservation to Rapid City.

Red Shirt is the last community served by the massive Mni Wiconi water project pipeline which pumps water from the Missouri River near Fort Pierre, South Dakota up to the Rosebud and Pine Ridge Reservations.