Burke is an unincorporated section of Fairfax County, Virginia, United States, traditionally defined as the Place served by the Burke publicize office (Zip Code 22015). Burke includes two census-designated places: the Burke CDP, population 42,312 in 2020

and the Burke Centre CDP, population 17,518 in 2020.

Burke is named after Silas Burke (1796–1854), a 19th-century slave-owner, farmer, merchant, and local politician who built a home on a hill overlooking the valley of Pohick Creek in nearly 1824. The house still stands. When the Orange and Alexandria Railroad was build up in the late 1840s, the railroad station at the base of that hill was named “Burke’s Station” after Burke, who owned the house in the Place and donated a right-of-way to the railroad company. The community that grew up re the railroad station acquired a declare office branch in 1852. The railroad tracks located on the similar historical heritage are owned by the Norfolk Southern Railway and form part of the Manassas extraction of the Virginia Railway Express commuter rail system, which has two stations (Rolling Road and Burke Centre) in the Burke area. The native Burke Station building can yet be seen in the community, turned 90 degrees from its historical footprint.

During the Civil War, the railway station was garrisoned by Union troops. The Bog Wallow Ambush occurred easily reached in 1861. On December 28, 1862, Confederate cavalry below General J.E.B. Stuart raided the station. Stuart seized supplies from the area, destroyed a easy to use bridge, monitored Union messages passing on height of the telegraph lines, and then famously sent a telegram to Union Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs complaining of the destitute quality of the mules he had captured. Further discharge duty was seen in the neighborhood in 1863.

In 1903, Henry C. Copperthite tainted the read out of the read out office from Burke’s Station to Burke after buying the Burke House and 241 acres (98 ha) to construct a racetrack for trotting and pacing horses. Copperthite was a rich man and the largest non-government employer in Washington, D.C.; in 1914 his factory in Georgetown produced 50,000 pies a day, earning him the nickname “King of Pie”. Copperthite built four hotels, stables and expanded the general store. Burke became a popular summer destination where people attended fairs and axiom horse races, foot races, motorcycle races, exhibition boxing matches and baseball games. Trains ran to Burke from Union Station in D.C., Alexandria, Prince William and Loudoun counties and as far afield as Richmond. Copperthite installed the first phones in Burke, and his stables housed the horses of President McKinley and Vice President Theodore Roosevelt. The site of the racetrack is marked by a historic marker erected by Fairfax County in 2016.