Altona, Illinois.
Typical home $124,264 (+14.2% in a year). Galesburg, IL metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$310 (+91%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $15,449 +14%
- $108,814$124,264 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $14,677 +13%
- $109,587$124,264 since Sep 2021
Monthly payment to buy the typical home
Home value × that month's 30-year mortgage rate, 20% down, principal and interest. This is the line households feel: prices and rates compound each other.
- Altona$652
- Illinois$1,553
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 28 years.
Typical home values in Altona, IL rose 14.2% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Altona, Knox County, Illinois
Altona is a village of 463 people in Knox County. Half its households earn more than $69,375 a year and half less, against $57,030 across Knox County; 8% of its people live below the poverty line. 92% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 8% are rented. Unemployment in Knox County was 4.4% in August 2026, and the county had 0.5% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Knox County work in schools and health care, then shops.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 23 October 2026 from the figures here, a list of nearby places and what it knows. It can be wrong or out of date.
What it’s like
The place. Altona is a small village in Knox County, Illinois, and almost everyone who lives there owns their home. Household incomes run above the county's, and fewer people live below the poverty line than you might expect for a small prairie town. Homes are modestly priced, and a four-year degree is held by a minority of adults, as is common in small Illinois communities.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with others in shops, manufacturing, and restaurants, hotels and entertainment. Across Knox County, some of the largest workplaces are Galesburg CUSD, St. Mary Medical Center and Knox College. Few people work from home, and the typical commute is a modest one.
Things to do. Bishop Hill State Historic Site, a museum, and the Galva Opera House, a theatre, are both a short drive away. Snakeden Hollow State Fish and Wildlife Area, a protected area, is also close, a short drive away, for time outdoors. Winters are cold and summers warm, with a fair amount of rain and melted snow through the year.
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- 196households
- 21%of adults have a degree
- 8%below the poverty line
- 21 mintypical commute
- 1%work from home
What people in Knox County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Knox County had 17,188 jobs in 2025, 0.5% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 30° and lows near 13°; warmest in July, with highs near 83° and lows near 62°. About 39 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Altona weather station, under a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Knox County
- Galesburg CUSD 205School district562FTE
- St. Mary Medical CenterGeneral hospital470FTE
- Knox CollegeUniversity or college465
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters392
- State of IL - IDOC - Hill CCPardon boards and offices301
- Carl Sandburg CollegeTwo-year college285
- Abingdon-Avon CUSD 276School district226FTE
- MidMachine shops216
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 42 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 4,268 people in all across the county; Altona has none of its own. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24), hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) and colleges from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24); FTE marks full-time equivalent staff. Not listed: many offices and banks, which need not report to OSHA; military bases, whose staff OPM withholds; and, in about half the states, city and county governments.
Natural hazards
- Strong windVery high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- DroughtRelatively moderate
- HailRelatively moderate
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Altona’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively low. It is meant for planning, not a substitute for a local risk assessment or a flood map: FEMA’s index.
From the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 census and its American Community Survey (2020–2024 five-year estimates), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A survey, so each figure has a margin of error, and figures it is not sure of are left out. More on Knox County and the Galesburg, IL metro.
Altona home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Altona$124,264
- Illinois$295,943
- United States$366,157
When this market ran hot
Each cell is that month's year-on-year home-value growth. Read left to right, top row is the latest year — the 2021–22 band is the boom.
Zip codes with a Altona address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Altona — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.