Burlington, Illinois
13 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1938 and the latest in 1981. It stands in Burlington Township. It lies in ZIP code area 60109. The Survey maps it on the Hampshire quadrangle. 535 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 925 feet above sea level.
Population over time
2 figuresBurlington fell from 618 to 535 between 2010 and 2020. These are the recorded population figures Wikidata holds for this place, reached through the Geographic Names Information System number this page is keyed on rather than by name, so they belong to this place and not to another of the same name. Most are census counts, but not all are: an early figure may be a founding or settlement estimate, and an estimate published within five years of a census is left out. The change column is computed, and is left blank where more than 20 years separate a figure from the one before it, because a gap that long is not a change between two counts.
| Year | People | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 618 | |
| 2020 | 535 | -83 (-13%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
7 surveys from 13 printed sheetsMatched by testing this settlement's coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet in the United States Geological Survey's historical collection. Each opens the scanned sheet at the Survey.
- 1938 USGS Genoa quadrangle1:62500, 3 printings
- 1954 USGS Rockford quadrangle1:250000
- 1955 USGS Rockford quadrangle1:250000
- 1958 USGS Rockford quadrangle1:250000, 4 printings
- 1963 USGS Rockford quadrangle1:250000
- 1968 USGS Hampshire quadrangle1:24000, 2 printings
- 1981 USGS Elgin quadrangle1:100000
In the county-history sources
1,488 words on this townshipHistory of Kane County, Ill., published 1908 names this settlement in its chapter on Burlington Township. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.
Burlington township on the west of the county is dotted with groves and well drained bv creeks and small streams, some of which run northwest and some southwest. Its position and altitude make it the backbone of the county. There are higher points, such as Bald Mound in Blackberry, but Burlington is higher on the average.
Passage source: History of Kane County, Ill., published 1908.
Claim jumping and controversies over land were the chief source of trouble in those days, and in Burlington once led to a riot. The mob had seized the culprit, one McClanathan, and cutting a hole in the ice had given him a plunge bath. He escaped and got to the village, where the people protected him from the mob. McClanathan had sold a settler a yoke of oxen, after which the purchaser had "gone bankrupt."' McClanathan then tried to get his land by entering it himself at the land office.
Passage source: History of Kane County, Ill., published 1908.
The Illinois Central Company some years ago built a branch of that line through Plato and Burlington township, which affords the residents there an easy outlet for their products. It crosses the Fox river at Coleman Station.
Passage source: History of Kane County, Ill., published 1908.
Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.
Read the whole chapter on Burlington Township - it names this place 7 more 7 times.
Fires near this place
8 since 2003Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 8 fires within 5 miles of Burlington between 2003 and 2013, burning about 108 acres in total. None started naturally. None was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
| Reported cause | Fires |
|---|---|
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 4 |
| Recreation and ceremony | 3 |
| Debris and open burning | 1 |
The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.
| Date | Cause | Size | Reported by | Name on the report |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 April 2013 | Debris and open burning | under an acre | Illinois Division of Forestry Resources | 2013-292 |
| 28 April 2003 | Recreation and ceremony | under an acre | Illinois State Fire Marshal's Office | not named |
| 2 April 2003 | Recreation and ceremony | 2.0 acres | Illinois State Fire Marshal's Office | not named |
| 2 April 2003 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Illinois State Fire Marshal's Office | not named |
| 15 April 2003 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Illinois State Fire Marshal's Office | not named |
| 14 April 2003 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 30 acres | Illinois State Fire Marshal's Office | not named |
| 11 April 2003 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Illinois State Fire Marshal's Office | not named |
| 26 March 2003 | Recreation and ceremony | 75 acres | Illinois State Fire Marshal's Office | not named |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
12 since 1997Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Burlington in 12 storm reports between 1997 and 2025: 11 thunderstorm wind, 1 tornado. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.
| When | Event | Place named | Harm | What the report says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| March 2025 | Thunderstorm Wind | Burlington | - | Tree damage was reported along CR-46 northwest of Burlington. |
| March 2025 | Thunderstorm Wind | Burlington | - | Damage to power lines was reported along CR-11 north of Burlington. |
| March 2025 | Thunderstorm Wind | Burlington | - | A barn collapsed and trees were damaged near Lenschow Rd and Engel Rd northwest of Burlington. |
| March 2025 | Thunderstorm Wind | Burlington | - | The tops of a few pine trees were snapped along Lenschow Rd northeast of Burlington. |
| March 2025 | Thunderstorm Wind | Burlington | - | Tree damage was reported along CR-11 north of Burlington. |
| July 2024 | Thunderstorm Wind | Burlington | - | A couple of trees were snapped and several 6 to 8 inch diameter tree limbs were blown down. |
| July 2024 | Thunderstorm Wind | Burlington | - | Numerous trees were blown down blocking Peplow Road. Tree limbs were also blown down onto power lines. At least one power line was on fire. |
| July 2024 | Thunderstorm Wind | Burlington | - | Numerous trees were blown down blocking roads. One tree fell onto a house and cars on Main Street. |
| July 2024 | Thunderstorm Wind | Burlington | - | Several trees were damaged, a roof was ripped off of a shed and the walls of a farm building collapsed along with part of the roof removed. |
| July 2022 | Thunderstorm Wind | Burlington | - | Trees and power lines were blown down onto Center Street. At least four trees were uprooted with several other trees snapped. |
| August 2021 | Tornado (EF1) | Burlington | - | A tornado with peak winds of 95 mph touched down just east of the DeKalb Kane County line, northwest of Plank Road. A garage door was blown in and several trees were uprooted at a residence just west of Engel Road. The tornado moved east along the south side of Plank Road, producing tree damage. A large farm outbuilding was damaged west of Lawrence Road. The tornado then moved southeast where it produced sporadic tree and crop damage along Waughon and Peplow Roads. The tornado continued southeast and lifted near the intersection of Burlington and Romke Roads. |
| April 1997 | Thunderstorm Wind | Burlington | - | no account filed |
Nearest settlements
The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.
| Map | Place | Distance | Sheets |
|---|---|---|---|
| Salina | 2.9 miles | 17 | |
| Hampshire | 3.2 miles | 13 | |
| North Plato | 4.4 miles | 17 | |
| Allens Corners | 4.8 miles | 17 | |
| Starks | 5.4 miles | 17 | |
| Henpeck | 6.0 miles | 17 | |
| Richardson | 6.3 miles | 9 | |
| Plato Center | 6.5 miles | 17 |
Elsewhere
Matched on this settlement's Geographic Names Information System number rather than its name, so it cannot be a different place of the same name in another state.
| Wikipedia article on Burlington | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q1941911 | The structured record the population and elevation above come from. Public domain (CC0). |
Provenance
This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 405231. The sheet list is computed by point-in-boundary test against the United States Geological Survey's historical topographic inventory. Both are works of the United States government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.






