Anne Arundel County, MD flood risk explained
Flood hazard in Anne Arundel County sits at the 80.9th national percentile, a middling flood hazard by national standards; split between inland river flooding (about 3.6 times a year) and coastal storm surge (about 3.7 times a year). That's a county-wide figure, not a per-address one — FEMA's parcel maps are a live lookup, not a bulk file.
Who actually carries the flood insurance FEMA requires
FEMA's own figures for Anne Arundel County report more NFIP policies in the mapped flood zone than FEMA's own count of residential structures there, which produces a compliance rate over 100% — a data problem on FEMA's side, not evidence that everyone here is over-insured. See the data quality guide for how widespread this is. Looking beyond the mandated zone, 2.5% of all residential structures in Anne Arundel County carry flood coverage voluntarily or otherwise — relevant because most NFIP claims nationally come from outside the mapped SFHA.
Where Anne Arundel County ranks
Among the 3144 US counties FEMA scores for flood hazard, Anne Arundel County ranks 626 — 1 being the highest hazard nationally — and 116 by population among all 3144 counties covered here, where 1 is the largest. Anne Arundel County, Maryland is home to about 602,350 people across 414.808 square miles of land.
What to do next if you own or are buying in Anne Arundel County
4,442 of Anne Arundel County's 176,381 residential structures carry flood coverage of some kind, per FEMA's latest count — useful context, not a substitute for checking one parcel.
Where Anne Arundel County's figures come from
Every figure on this page traces to a named FEMA dataset, documented in the methodology guide. Anne Arundel County's compliance figure is one of the ones affected by FEMA's incomplete denominator data — the data quality guide explains what that means and how many counties it touches.