Is Baltimore County, MD in a flood zone?
FEMA's National Risk Index puts Baltimore County's flood hazard at the 93.9th percentile nationally — well above the national norm for flood hazard — driven by inland rivers and flash flooding rather than the coast — FEMA's model puts a flood event here at about 5.6 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
Baltimore County is one of the counties where FEMA's own denominator for mandated flood-zone structures is missing, so no compliance rate is shown rather than a guessed one — the data quality guide covers how common this is. Across all residential structures in Baltimore County, not just the ones FEMA mandates, 1.2% carry an NFIP policy — most flood damage nationally happens outside the mapped high-risk zone, so that broader number matters too.
Where Baltimore County ranks
Baltimore County sits at rank 209 of 3144 counties on FEMA's flood hazard scale (1 is worst) and rank 75 of 3144 by population (1 is biggest). Baltimore County, Maryland covers 598.359 square miles and counts roughly 852,425 residents.
What to do next if you own or are buying in Baltimore County
Across all of Baltimore County's 259,538 residential structures, 3,097 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 Baltimore County's numbers. See the data quality guide for why Baltimore County, like hundreds of other counties, doesn't get a clean compliance percentage.