Sedgwick County, KS: flood risk, in FEMA's own numbers
On FEMA's National Risk Index, Sedgwick County scores at the 96.1th percentile for flood hazard, rated "Relatively High" — well above the national norm for flood hazard. The hazard here is driven by inland rivers and flash flooding rather than the coast — FEMA's model puts a flood event here at about 3.6 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.
Sedgwick County's flood-insurance compliance gap
Homes with a federally backed mortgage inside Sedgwick 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, 15.5% of them do — 536 active policies against 3,456 structures FEMA counts in that zone, leaving a real compliance gap. Looking beyond the mandated zone, 0.5% of all residential structures in Sedgwick County carry flood coverage voluntarily or otherwise — relevant because most NFIP claims nationally come from outside the mapped SFHA.
How Sedgwick County compares nationally
Among the 3144 US counties FEMA scores for flood hazard, Sedgwick County ranks 133 — 1 being the highest hazard nationally — and 137 by population among all 3144 counties covered here, where 1 is the largest. About 536,081 people live in Sedgwick County, Kansas, spread over 997.001 square miles.
What to do next if you own or are buying in Sedgwick County
Across all of Sedgwick County's 190,494 residential structures, 850 carry an NFIP policy today — a county-wide count that still can't tell you one address's own mapped zone.
Where Sedgwick County's figures come from
Every figure on this page traces to a named FEMA dataset, documented in the methodology guide. If you're unsure why any of this insurance requirement exists at all, the SFHA explainer covers it from first principles.