New York County, NY flood risk explained
Flood hazard in New York County sits at the 99.2th national percentile, among the highest flood hazard in the country; driven by inland rivers and flash flooding rather than the coast — FEMA's model puts a flood event here at about 2 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
FEMA hasn't published a residential structure count for New York County'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, 1.5% of all residential structures in New York County carry flood coverage voluntarily or otherwise — relevant because most NFIP claims nationally come from outside the mapped SFHA.
Where New York County ranks
Among the 3144 US counties FEMA scores for flood hazard, New York County ranks 28 — 1 being the highest hazard nationally — and 21 by population among all 3144 counties covered here, where 1 is the largest. New York County, New York is home to about 1,660,664 people across 22.658 square miles of land.
Checking a specific address in New York County
FEMA counts 126,503 residential structures in New York County overall, 1,854 of them carrying some form of NFIP coverage — but a lender or insurer cares about one parcel, not that county total.
Where New York County's figures come from
Every figure on this page traces to a named FEMA dataset, documented in the methodology guide. New York County'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.