Burden, Kansas.
Typical home $138,938 (+6.2% in a year). Winfield, KS metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$432 (+145%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $8,076 +6%
- $130,862$138,938 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $33,343 +32%
- $105,595$138,938 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.
- Burden$729
- Kansas$1,291
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 13 years.
Typical home values in Burden, KS rose 6.2% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Burden, Cowley County, Kansas
Burden is a city of 512 people in Cowley County. Half its households earn more than $55,833 a year and half less, against $57,878 across Cowley County; 13% of its people live below the poverty line. 78% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 22% are rented. Unemployment in Cowley County was 4.8% in August 2026, and the county had 0.7% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in restaurants and hotels, then manufacturing.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Burden is a very small city in Cowley County, Kansas, where most homes are lived in by their owners, a larger share than across much of the country. Household incomes run a little below the county's, and the typical home value is modest. Winters are cold, summers are hot, and the town gets some snow each year along with a fair amount of rain.
Work. Residents work mostly in restaurants, hotels and entertainment, in manufacturing, in shops, and in schools, hospitals and social care. Across Cowley County, some of the largest workplaces are Creekstone Farms Premium Beef, GE Engine Services and Winfield Schools. The typical commute is fairly long, and very few people work from home.
Things to do. For time outdoors, the Walnut River and the Whitewater River are both a longer drive away. Bartlett Arboretum, a botanical garden, is also a longer drive, as is Richard L. Jantz Stadium, a stadium for local events.
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- 208households
- 21%of adults have a degree
- 13%below the poverty line
- 28 mintypical commute
- 4%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Cowley County had 13,138 jobs in 2025, 0.7% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 44° and lows near 20°; warmest in July, with highs near 91° and lows near 68°. About 9 inches of snow and 41 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Winfield 3NE weather station, 10 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Cowley County
- Creekstone Farms Premium BeefMeats fresh, chilled or frozen, produced in slaughtering plants1,200
- GE Engine Services709
- Winfield SchoolsSchool district601FTE
- Arkansas City SchoolsSchool district376FTE
- Southwestern CollegeUniversity or college351
- Cowley County Community CollegeTwo-year college298
- Newell Brands LLC - RubbermaidTrash containers, plastics, manufacturing297
- Western Industries Plastic ProductsDrums, plastics, manufacturing269
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 35 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 4,767 people in all across the county; Burden has none of its own. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) 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
- TornadoesVery high
- WildfireRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- Ice stormsRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Burden’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively moderate. 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 Cowley County and the Winfield, KS metro.
Burden home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Burden$138,938
- Kansas$246,055
- 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 Burden address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Burden — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.