Highland, Kansas.
Typical home $164,836 (+8.5% in a year). St. Joseph, MO-KS metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$522 (+152%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $12,945 +9%
- $151,891$164,836 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $49,062 +42%
- $115,775$164,836 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.
- Highland$865
- Kansas$1,291
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 10 years.
Typical home values in Highland, KS rose 8.5% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Highland, Doniphan County, Kansas
Highland is a city of 903 people in Doniphan County. Unemployment in Doniphan County was 4.6% in August 2026, and the county had 1.9% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Doniphan County work in schools and health care, 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Highland is a small city in Doniphan County, and its population is young, with a median age well below that of most American towns. That fits a place with a community college in the area. Homes here are modest in price, and winters are cold, with real snow, while summers turn warm and the year brings a fair amount of rain and melted snow.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, retail, and farming and forestry also employing many people. Across Doniphan County, the largest workplaces include Highland Community College, Snorkel, which builds construction machinery, and Elanco Elwood, a pharmaceutical manufacturer. Unemployment across the county has run a little higher than a year earlier, while the number of jobs has grown slightly.
Things to do. For time outdoors, the Wolf River and Brown State Fishing Lake are both a short drive away, suited to fishing and a quiet afternoon by the water. Loess Bluffs National Wildlife Refuge, a protected area, is a longer drive away and is a good choice for watching birds and wildlife. Itha T. Krumme Memorial Arboretum, a botanical garden, is also a longer drive away.
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- 213households
- 38%of adults have a degree
- 8%below the poverty line
- 9%work from home
What people in Doniphan County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Doniphan County had 2,817 jobs in 2025, 1.9% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 36° and lows near 17°; warmest in July, with highs near 87° and lows near 67°. About 21 inches of snow and 37 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Troy 3N weather station, 10 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Doniphan County
- Highland Community CollegeTwo-year college343
- SnorkelConstruction machinery manufacturing141
- Elanco ElwoodPharmaceutical preparations manufacturing136
- KGE Industries135
- M CONWater main and line construction111
- Riverside SchoolsSchool district81FTE
- Doniphan West SchoolsSchool district56FTE
- Midland Steel CompanyStructural steel, fabricated, manufacturing53
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 7 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 694 people in all across the county; Highland has two of its own. Colleges come from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24) and school districts from the Common Core of Data (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
- DroughtRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- Ice stormsRelatively moderate
- Winter weatherRelatively moderate
- Strong windRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Highland’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 Doniphan County and the St. Joseph, MO-KS metro.
Highland home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Highland$164,836
- 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 Highland address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Highland — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.