Baltimore city, MD: flood risk, in FEMA's own numbers
On FEMA's National Risk Index, Baltimore city scores at the 94.3th percentile for flood hazard, rated "Relatively High" — well above the national norm for flood hazard. The hazard here is driven by inland rivers and flash flooding rather than the coast — FEMA's model puts a flood event here at about 1.9 times a year. County-wide, not parcel-specific: FEMA's real flood-zone map is queried live, never shipped as a download.
Who actually carries the flood insurance FEMA requires
FEMA hasn't published a residential structure count for Baltimore city's mapped flood zone, so a reliable mandatory-compliance percentage can't be computed here — see the data quality guide for why this gap exists for roughly a quarter of US counties. Looking beyond the mandated zone, 0.3% of all residential structures in Baltimore city carry flood coverage voluntarily or otherwise — relevant because most NFIP claims nationally come from outside the mapped SFHA.
Baltimore city against the rest of the country
Among the 3144 US counties FEMA scores for flood hazard, Baltimore city ranks 195 — 1 being the highest hazard nationally — and 126 by population among all 3144 counties covered here, where 1 is the largest. About 568,271 people live in Baltimore city, Maryland, spread over 80.946 square miles.
Your street may differ from Baltimore city's average
Across all of Baltimore city's 202,958 residential structures, 678 carry an NFIP policy today — a county-wide count that still can't tell you one address's own mapped zone.
Where Baltimore city's figures come from
Every figure on this page traces to a named FEMA dataset, documented in the methodology guide. Baltimore city'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.