Is Cherokee County, SC in a flood zone?
FEMA's National Risk Index puts Cherokee County's flood hazard at the 72.5th 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 once every 3 years. That's a county-wide figure, not a per-address one — FEMA's parcel maps are a live lookup, not a bulk file.
Cherokee County's flood-insurance compliance gap
Homes with a federally backed mortgage inside Cherokee 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, 11% of them do — 9 active policies against 82 structures FEMA counts in that zone, leaving a real compliance gap. Across all residential structures in Cherokee County, not just the ones FEMA mandates, 0.1% carry an NFIP policy — most flood damage nationally happens outside the mapped high-risk zone, so that broader number matters too.
How Cherokee County compares nationally
Cherokee County sits at rank 904 of 3144 counties on FEMA's flood hazard scale (1 is worst) and rank 914 of 3144 by population (1 is biggest). Cherokee County, South Carolina covers 392.967 square miles and counts roughly 57,770 residents.
Your street may differ from Cherokee County's average
Across all of Cherokee County's 24,522 residential structures, 23 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 Cherokee 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.