Is Butte County, CA in a flood zone?
FEMA's National Risk Index puts Butte County's flood hazard at the 93.2th percentile nationally — a middling flood hazard by national standards — driven by inland rivers and flash flooding rather than the coast — FEMA's model puts a flood event here at about 1.4 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
Homes with a federally backed mortgage inside Butte 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, 22.3% of them do — 898 active policies against 4,026 structures FEMA counts in that zone, leaving a real compliance gap. Across all residential structures in Butte County, not just the ones FEMA mandates, 1.9% carry an NFIP policy — most flood damage nationally happens outside the mapped high-risk zone, so that broader number matters too.
Butte County against the rest of the country
Butte County sits at rank 230 of 3144 counties on FEMA's flood hazard scale (1 is worst) and rank 343 of 3144 by population (1 is biggest). Butte County, California is home to about 208,334 people across 1,636.511 square miles of land.
What to do next if you own or are buying in Butte County
Across all of Butte County's 71,778 residential structures, 1,384 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 Butte County's numbers. The guide to what the Special Flood Hazard Area actually means explains why the mandatory-insurance rule exists and who it applies to.