Burlington is a city in, and the county chair of, Des Moines County, Iowa, United States. The population was 23,982 in the 2020 census, a decline from the 26,839 population in 2000. Burlington is the middle of a micropolitan area, which includes West Burlington and Middletown, Iowa, and Gulfport, Illinois. Burlington is the house of Snake Alley, the most crooked street.

Prior to European settlement, the Place was genderless territory for the Sac and Fox Native American tribes, who called it Shoquoquon (Shok-ko-kon), meaning Flint Hills.

In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson organized two parties of explorers to map the Louisiana Purchase. The Lewis and Clark Expedition followed the Missouri River, while Lt. Zebulon Pike followed the Mississippi River. In 1805, Pike landed at the bluffs under Burlington and raised the United States Flag for the first time upon what would become Iowa soil and recommended construction of a fort. The assistance went unheeded.

The American Fur Company of John Jacob Astor expected a herald in the area in 1829. Settlement began in 1833, shortly after the Black Hawk Purchase, when Samuel (aka Simpson) White, Amzi Doolitle, and Morton M. McCarver crossed the Mississippi River from gigantic Island and staked claims there. According to an account A.T. Andreas wrote in 1875,^{[citation needed]} White erected a cabin in the Place later platted to be Front Street amongst Court and High streets. Andreas called White and Doolittle the Romulus and Remus of their settlement, referring to the mythic heroes who founded Rome, a city together with hills. A few weeks later, William R. Ross allied them and time-honored a general store. In November and December, he surveyed the deal for White and Doolittle.^: 145