Darwin, Minnesota.
Typical home $377,411 (+8.8% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,162 (+142%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $30,544 +9%
- $346,867$377,411 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $95,433 +34%
- $281,977$377,411 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.
- Darwin$1,981
- Minnesota$1,831
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 12 years.
Typical home values in Darwin, MN rose 8.8% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Darwin, Meeker County, Minnesota
Darwin is a city of 348 people in Meeker County. 81% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 19% are rented. Unemployment in Meeker County was 4.9% in August 2026, and the county had 2.5% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in manufacturing, then schools and health care.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Darwin is a very small city in Meeker County, Minnesota, where nearly all homes are lived in by their owners. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month and temperatures that often sit around or below freezing point for days at a stretch, while July is the warmest and comfortably mild. Rain and melted snow add up to a moderate amount over the year.
Work. Residents work mainly in manufacturing, in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, and in the building trades. Across Meeker County, some of the largest workplaces are Bobcat, which makes construction-type tractors and attachments, Litchfield Public School District, and Meeker County Memorial Hospital. Unemployment across the county is a little higher than a year ago, and there were slightly fewer jobs there last year than the year before.
Things to do. Darwin is best known for the biggest ball of twine, a tourist attraction in or beside town. A short drive away are several lakes, including Dunns Lake and Richardson Lake, as well as the Litchfield Opera House, a theatre.
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- 136households
- 16%of adults have a degree
- 10%below the poverty line
- 22 mintypical commute
- 4%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Meeker County had 7,838 jobs in 2025, 2.5% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 20° and lows near 0°; warmest in July, with highs near 81° and lows near 60°. About 30 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Litchfield weather station, 6 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Meeker County
- BobcatConstruction-type tractors and attachments manufacturing293
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters244
- Cretex Medical - Component and Device TechnologiesMachine shops237
- Litchfield Public School DistrictSchool district217FTE
- Monroe Towmaster LLC (5300)Flatbed trailers, commercial, manufacturing209
- Meeker County Memorial HospitalCritical access hospital187FTE
- Premier Health Care ManagementSkilled nursing facilities170
- Custom Products Of LitchfieldSkids, metal, manufacturing127
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 45 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 3,875 people in all across the county; Darwin has none of its own. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023); 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
- HailRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Darwin’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 Meeker County.
Darwin home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Darwin$377,411
- Minnesota$348,778
- United States$366,157
Levy by levy, and a check of one home’s own bill, the site covers Ohio’s property tax.
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.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Darwin8
Zip codes with a Darwin address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Darwin — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.