The present invention intends to provide a surface combustion burner which can permit high intensity combustion at the burner surface by preventing the occurrence of a lift phenomenon of flames due to whirling of air from the peripheral portion of the surface combustion burner. To this end, a mixing chamber positioned rearwardly of a porous member having its front surface constituting a combustion surface is divided by a partition wall into a first mixing chamber positioned at a central portion and a second mixing chamber positioned to surround the first mixing chamber so that fuel gas mixtures at different air ratios are supplied to the first and second mixing chambers, respectively, and/or the porous member having its front surface serving as the combustion surface has a resistance against the flow velocity of fuel gas mixture which is higher at a peripheral edge nearby region than at the remaining region.