Is Buchanan County, MO in a flood zone?
FEMA's National Risk Index puts Buchanan County's flood hazard at the 68.5th percentile nationally — below 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 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
Buchanan 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 Buchanan County, not just the ones FEMA mandates, 0.7% carry an NFIP policy — most flood damage nationally happens outside the mapped high-risk zone, so that broader number matters too.
Buchanan County against the rest of the country
Buchanan County sits at rank 1031 of 3144 counties on FEMA's flood hazard scale (1 is worst) and rank 702 of 3144 by population (1 is biggest). Buchanan County, Missouri is home to about 83,574 people across 408.249 square miles of land.
What to do next if you own or are buying in Buchanan County
Across all of Buchanan County's 32,464 residential structures, 215 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 Buchanan County's numbers. See the data quality guide for why Buchanan County, like hundreds of other counties, doesn't get a clean compliance percentage.