Stanley is the only major city in Mountrail County, North Dakota, United States.

The town's economy is heavily connected to the nearby oil-rich Bakken Formation.

In 1935, Stanley was the site of one of the deadliest tornadoes in North Dakota's recorded history.

[8] Amtrak, the national passenger rail system, serves a station in Stanley via its Empire Builder, a once-daily train in each direction between Portland, Oregon/Seattle, Washington and Chicago.

[9] The Great Northern Railway Underpass is now on the National Register of Historic Places.

Stanley is situated on the Bakken Formation, which encompasses northwestern North Dakota, northeastern Montana, and southern Saskatchewan, Canada.

With new technologies in oilfield production and the rising price of oil, the field has now become economically viable.

The field may be the largest producing onshore field in the Continental United States outside of Texas and California, with the U.S. Geological Survey estimating that it contains between 3 billion and 4,300,000,000 barrels (680,000,000 m3) of oil, sixth overall in the lower 48, and could hold as much as 200 billion barrels (32×10^9 m3) of oil.

The racial makeup of the city was 98.98% White, 0.55% Native American, 0.31% Asian, 0.08% Pacific Islander, and 0.08% from two or more races.