City safety & data profile

Great BendKS

Great Bend, KS is a 16K-resident city in Barton County with a median household income of $54,139.

Barton County, Kansas. Federal health, economic, and safety indicators for Great Bend, drawn from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, CDC PLACES, and CMS Hospital Compare. Great Bend has a population larger than 30% of the 4,640 U.S. cities Areazine tracks, a median home value of $133,900, and 1 hospital serving the surrounding area.

Data updated 2026-09-04

16K
Population (place)
Bottom 31%
By size
$54,139
Median income (place)
$133,900
Median home (place)
16.9%
Poverty rate (place)
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The read on Great Bend

Great Bend posts a median household income higher than 14% of U.S. cities Areazine tracks, where 1 hospital serves the Great Bend area.

Bottom 15%
by median income, US cities
1
hospital in & near Great Bend

Where Great Bend income ranks nationally

Median household income vs. every place Areazine profiles (place-level ACS)

$54,139 Bottom 14% higher than 14% of 3,889 places Areazine profiles

Great Bend $0 $260,000 every profiled place, bucketed by value

Each bar is a $20K-wide band; taller bars hold more places Areazine profiles. The dashed line + filled bar mark this entry. Hover or tap any bar for its full count, share, and where it sits relative to this entry.

Source U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey (place-level) · 2024 ACS 5-year

Largest cities in KS

Population among 36 KS places with 10,000+ residents and ACS income on Areazine. Tooltip shows the income rank in the same pool.

residents

What this shows Wichita is the largest KS city on this list; Leawood leads median income.

Source U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey (place-level) As of 2024 ACS 5-year

Highest median incomes in KS

Median household income among the same 36-city pool. Tooltip shows the population rank.

median

What this shows Leawood posts the highest place-level median income in KS; Wichita is largest by headcount.

Source U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey (place-level) As of 2024 ACS 5-year

The quick read

Reading Great Bend, KS beyond the headline numbers

Great Bend sits inside Barton County, Kansas, at roughly 38.36°N, -98.76°W. Population 15,717, $54,139 median household income. Median home value $133,900, median rent $759. Poverty rate 16.9%, read against that income figure since two cities on the same median can differ underneath it.

1 hospital in/around Great Bend, 4/5 avg rating, 1 with an ER.

16.9% of Great Bend, KS residents live below the poverty line, placing it in the hardest-hit quarter of reporting cities. Read every median on this page against that: half the households are above it, and a large minority are far below.

Housing is inexpensive against local pay -- the median home in Great Bend runs about 2.5 years of median household income, in the cheapest quarter of reporting cities.

Only 5.9% of Great Bend workers report working from home, the lowest quarter of reporting cities -- an economy still built around showing up somewhere.

Among the CDC measures on this page, coronary heart disease departs furthest from its peer median: 8% in Great Bend, the highest-prevalence quarter of the 3,757 cities reporting that measure.

Public transit carries 0.1% of Great Bend workers, a smaller share than at least three quarters of reporting cities.

Sources: U.S. Census ACS, CDC PLACES, CMS Hospital Compare, plus live alerts for Great Bend from FEMA, NOAA, FDA, and CPSC. Economic comparison bars use the unweighted average across tracked Census places with a reported value, not a household-weighted national median.

Population (place)
15,717
Great Bend · Census Place
Median Income (place)
$54,139
-39% vs avg
Median Home Value (place)
$133,900
-68% vs avg
Median Age (place)
36.5
years · ACS place

10-Year Trends 2013–2024

County-level trend (Barton County): Great Bend's own historical series isn't separately published by the Census Bureau, so these year-over-year figures track the surrounding county, not the city alone.

20132024
Population
25K-9%
Median Income
$58,851+31%
Median Home Value
$126,400+68%
Poverty Rate
15.4%+11%
Unemployment
3.9%-44%

Economics

Economics indicators for Great Bend, KS
IndicatorValue
Median Rent
$759/mo
Poverty Rate
16.9% +36% vs avg
Unemployment 4.7%
Bachelor's Degree+ 19.9%
Work From Home 5.9%
Public Transit 0.1%

Population

White 73.1%
African American 0.5%
Asian 0.3%
Two or More Ethnicities 1.2%

Health Profile 15 measures

Health Indicators

Obesity
39.3%
High Blood Pressure
37.5%
Short Sleep Duration
34%
Physical Inactivity
31.6%
Frequent Mental Distress
16.6%
Current Smoking
16.6%
Frequent Physical Distress
14.7%
Binge Drinking
14.6%
Lack of Health Insurance
14%
Diabetes
13.4%

Preventive Care

Dental Visit 58.2%
Annual Checkup 77.2%

Other Measures

Current Asthma
10.2%
Coronary Heart Disease
8%
Stroke
4%

Hospitals 1 total

Rating Distribution
★★★★★
0
★★★★
1
★★★
0
★★
0
0
Average Rating
4/5
Total Hospitals
1
With ER
1
UNIVERSITY OF KS HLTH SYSTEM GREAT BEND CAMPUS
GREAT BEND · Acute Care Hospitals · ER
★★★★☆

What alerts and safety updates affect Great Bend?

No area-tagged alerts are on record for Great Bend right now. New federal and counterpart-agency notices still land in the site feed as agencies publish them.

City alert dispatch desk

Sheet KS-GREAT-BEND · Great Bend

Great Bend: no area-tagged alerts on record — state hubs carry the live CAP stream.

  • FEED-QUIET No tagged alerts
  • LEAD-NONE Feed idle
  • DESK-IDLE Awaiting feed

Counts reflect published articles tagged to Great Bend; untagged NOAA county warnings may still appear in the site feed. Browse Kansas state hubs · Methodology

Read with this city profile

Frequently Asked Questions 6

What is the population of Great Bend, KS?
Great Bend, KS has a population of 15,717 people, located in Barton County, Kansas.
What is the median household income in Great Bend?
The median household income in Great Bend, KS is $54,139 per year, per the U.S. Census ACS. The poverty rate is 16.9%.
What is the median home value in Great Bend?
The median home value in Great Bend, KS is $133,900. Median rent is $759/month.
What are the top health concerns in Great Bend?
The top health indicators in Great Bend include Obesity (39.3%), High Blood Pressure (37.5%), Short Sleep Duration (34%). Data from CDC PLACES.
How many hospitals are in Great Bend?
Great Bend has 1 hospital with an average rating of 4/5 stars. 1 have emergency departments.
What is the median age in Great Bend?
The median age in Great Bend, KS is 36.5 years. 19.9% of residents have a bachelor's degree or higher.

Nationwide cities with similar poverty or income 8

Two ACS-derived peer sets for Great Bend, both outside Kansas so the neighborhoods are not the geographic nearby list below.

Similar poverty rate

Nearest place-level ACS poverty rates outside KS (16.9% here).

Similar median income

Nearest place-level ACS median household incomes outside KS ($54,139 here).

Compare Great Bend with another city

Pick a second U.S. city to open a side-by-side profile on population, income, health, and hospitals, the same federal datasets as this page.

Quick picks:

Nearby Cities 8

Using Great Bend's profile

Use this as a starting research checklist, not a verdict on whether to live here.

  • Check live recalls, weather and hazard alerts scoped to the Great Bend area before relying on national headlines. Check your area
  • Read the poverty rate alongside the income figure, two places with the same median can have very different realities.
  • Compare Great Bend against Kansas peers on any ranking lens. Explore Kansas

Population and economics (income, home value, poverty, education) are place-level U.S. Census ACS; health is CDC PLACES; hospital counts reflect facilities in and around the city. County-level trends are labeled when shown.

Data Sources

All data on this page comes from official U.S. government sources. Population and economic data from the Census Bureau American Community Survey (2024 5-year estimates, place geography). Health data from the CDC PLACES program (2023). Hospital ratings from CMS Hospital Compare (2024). Climate data from NOAA. Education data from NCES. Cost of living from Bureau of Economic Analysis. Crime statistics, where referenced on Areazine, originate from the FBI Crime Data Explorer. Housing market figures referenced on Areazine come from HUD Fair Market Rents. Census economics and population are at place geography; some health and hospital indicators are reported at the county level (Barton County) where that is the smallest published unit.

Every figure on Areazine is published directly from official U.S. government sources, no number is typed in by an editor. City demographic and health figures are compiled directly from U.S. Census (place-level ACS), CDC, and CMS releases, updated quarterly within 30 days of upstream release. County-level trends are labeled when shown. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of 2026.