Prior Lake is an exurban city 20 miles southwest of Minneapolis, next to Savage and Shakopee in Scott County in the state of Minnesota. Surrounding the shores of Lower and Upper Prior Lake, the city is south of the Minnesota River in an area known as RiverSouth and establishes the urban fringe of the south-southwest portion of Minneapolis-St. Paul, the 16th-largest metropolitan area in the United States. The population was 27,617 at the 2020 census.