Is Baldwin County, AL in a flood zone?
FEMA's National Risk Index puts Baldwin County's flood hazard at the 92.2th percentile nationally — well above the national norm for flood hazard — split between inland river flooding (about 3 times a year) and coastal storm surge (about 3.7 times a year). This describes the county, not any one street — FEMA only publishes exact parcel zones through a live map service.
Who actually carries the flood insurance FEMA requires
Homes with a federally backed mortgage inside Baldwin County's mapped high-risk flood zone (the Special Flood Hazard Area, or SFHA) are legally required to carry an NFIP flood policy. In practice, 63.6% of them do — 6,643 active policies against 10,442 structures FEMA counts in that zone, leaving a real compliance gap. Across all residential structures in Baldwin County, not just the ones FEMA mandates, 9.3% carry an NFIP policy — most flood damage nationally happens outside the mapped high-risk zone, so that broader number matters too.
How Baldwin County compares nationally
Baldwin County sits at rank 262 of 3144 counties on FEMA's flood hazard scale (1 is worst) and rank 283 of 3144 by population (1 is biggest). Baldwin County, Alabama is home to about 261,608 people across 1,589.943 square miles of land.
Checking a specific address in Baldwin County
Across all of Baldwin County's 97,390 residential structures, 9,007 carry an NFIP policy today — a county-wide count that still can't tell you one address's own mapped zone.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide shows exactly which FEMA and Census tables feed Baldwin County's numbers. Because storm surge plays a real role here, the guide to coastal vs. inland flood hazard is worth reading alongside this page.