USA Flood Hazard Areas

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) produces Flood Insurance Rate maps and identifies Special Flood Hazard Areas as part of the National Flood Insurance Program's floodplain management. Special Flood Hazard Areas have regulations that include the mandatory purchase of flood insurance for holders of federally regulated mortgages. In addition, this layer can help planners and firms avoid areas of flood risk and also avoid additional cost to carry insurance for certain planned activities. Dataset Summary Phenomenon Mapped: Flood Hazard Areas Geographic Extent: Contiguous United States, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, US Virgin Islands, Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa. Projection: Web Mercator Auxiliary Sphere Data Coordinate System: USA Contiguous Albers Equal Area Conic USGS version (contiguous US, Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands), WGS 1984 Albers (Alaska), Hawaii Albers Equal Area Conic (Hawaii), Western Pacific Albers Equal Area Conic (Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa) Cell Sizes: 10 meters (default), 30 meters, and 90 meters Units: None Source Type: Thematic Pixel Type: Unsigned integer Source: Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Update Frequency: Annual Publication Date: March 3, 2026 This layer is derived from the March 3, 2026 version Flood Insurance Rate Map feature class S_FLD_HAZ_AR. The vector data were then flagged with an index of 94 classes, representing a unique combination of values displayed by three renderers. (In three resolutions the three renderers make nine processing templates.) Repair Geometry was run on the set of features, then the features were rasterized using the 94 class index at a resolutions of 10, 30, and 90 meters, using the Polygon to Raster tool and the "MAXIMUM_COMBINED_AREA" option. Not every part of the United States is covered by flood rate maps. This layer compiles all the flood insurance maps available at the time of publication. To make analysis easier, areas that were NOT mapped by FEMA for flood insurance rates no longer are served as NODATA but are filled in with a value of 250, representing any unmapped areas which appear in the US Census boundary of the USA states and territories. The attribute table corresponding to value 250 will indicate that the area was not mapped. What can you do with this layer? This layer is suitable for both visualization and analysis across the ArcGIS system. This layer can be combined with your data and other layers from the ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World in ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Pro to create powerful web maps that can be used alone or in a story map or other application. Because this layer is part of the ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World it is easy to add to your map: In ArcGIS Online, you can add this layer to a map by selecting Add then Browse Living Atlas Layers. A window will open. Type "flood hazard areas" in the search box and browse to the layer. Select the layer then click Add to Map. In ArcGIS Pro, open a map and select Add Data from the Map Tab. Select Data at the top of the drop down menu. The Add Data dialog box will open on the left side of the box, expand Portal if necessary, then select Living Atlas. Type "flood hazard areas" in the search box, browse to the layer then click OK. In ArcGIS Pro you can use the built-in raster functions to create custom extracts of the data. Imagery layers provide fast, powerful inputs to geoprocessing tools, models, or Python scripts in Pro. The ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World provides an easy way to explore many other beautiful and authoritative maps on hundreds of topics like this one. Processing Templates Cartographic Renderer - The default. These are meaningful classes grouped by FEMA which group its own Flood Zone Type and Subtype fields. This renderer uses FEMA's own cartographic interpretations of its flood zone and zone subtype fields to help you identify and assess risk. Flood Zone Type Renderer - Specifically renders FEMA FLD_ZONE (flood zone) attribute, which distinguishes the original, broadest categories of flood zones. This renderer displays high level categories of flood zones, and is less nuanced than the Cartographic Renderer. For example, a fld_zone value of X can either have moderate or low risk depending on location. This renderer will simply render fld_zone X as its own color without identifying "500 year" flood zones within that category. Flood Insurance Requirement Renderer - Shows Special Flood Hazard Area (SFHA) true-false status. This may be helpful if you want to show just the places where flood insurance is required. A value of True means flood insurance is mandatory in a majority of the area covered by each 10m pixel. Each of these three renderers have templates at three different raster resolutions depending on your analysis needs. To include the layer in web maps to serve maps and queries, the 10 meter renderers are the preferred option. These are served with overviews and render at all resolutions. However, when doing analysis of larger areas, we now offer two coarser resolutions of 30 and 90 meters in processing templates for added convenience and time savings. Data Dictionary Making a copy of your area of interest using copyraster in arcgis pro will copy the layer's attribute table to your network alongside the local output raster. The raster attribute table in the copied raster will contain the flood zone, zone subtype, and special flood hazard area true/false flag which corresponds to each value in the layer for your area of interest. For your convienence, we also included a table in CSV format in the box below as a data dictionary you can use as an index to every value in the layer. Value,FLD_ZONE,ZONE_SUBTY,SFHA_TF 2,A,, 3,A,,F 4,A,,T 5,A,,T 6,A,,T 7,A,1 PCT ANNUAL CHANCE FLOOD HAZARD CONTAINED IN CHANNEL,T 8,A,1 PCT ANNUAL CHANCE FLOOD HAZARD CONTAINED IN STRUCTURE,T 9,A,ADMINISTRATIVE FLOODWAY,T 10,A,COASTAL FLOODPLAIN,T 11,A,FLOWAGE EASEMENT AREA,T 12,A99,,T 13,A99,AREA WITH REDUCED FLOOD RISK DUE TO LEVEE,T 14,AE,,F 15,AE,,T 16,AE,,T 17,AE,,T 18,AE,1 PCT ANNUAL CHANCE FLOOD HAZARD CONTAINED IN CHANNEL,T 19,AE,1 PCT ANNUAL CHANCE FLOOD HAZARD CONTAINED IN STRUCTURE,T 20,AE,"1 PCT CONTAINED IN STRUCTURE, COMMUNITY ENCROACHMENT",T 21,AE,"1 PCT CONTAINED IN STRUCTURE, FLOODWAY",T 22,AE,ADMINISTRATIVE FLOODWAY,T 23,AE,AREA OF SPECIAL CONSIDERATION,T 24,AE,COASTAL FLOODPLAIN,T 25,AE,COLORADO RIVER FLOODWAY,T 26,AE,COMBINED RIVERINE AND COASTAL FLOODPLAIN,T 27,AE,COMMUNITY ENCROACHMENT,T 28,AE,COMMUNITY ENCROACHMENT AREA,T 29,AE,DENSITY FRINGE AREA,T 30,AE,FLOODWAY,T 31,AE,FLOODWAY CONTAINED IN CHANNEL,T 32,AE,FLOODWAY CONTAINED IN STRUCTURE,T 33,AE,FLOWAGE EASEMENT AREA,T 34,AE,RIVERINE FLOODWAY IN COMBINED RIVERINE AND COASTAL ZONE,T 35,AE,RIVERINE FLOODWAY SHOWN IN COASTAL ZONE,T 36,AE,STATE ENCROACHMENT AREA,T 37,AH,,T 38,AH,,T 39,AH,FLOODWAY,T 40,AO,,T 41,AO,COASTAL FLOODPLAIN,T 42,AO,FLOODWAY,T 43,AREA NOT INCLUDED,,F 44,AREA NOT INCLUDED,,T 45,AREA NOT INCLUDED,,U 46,D,,F 47,D,,T 48,D,AREA WITH FLOOD RISK DUE TO LEVEE,F 49,OPEN WATER,,F 50,OPEN WATER,,T 51,OPEN WATER,,U 52,V,,T 53,V,COASTAL FLOODPLAIN,T 54,VE,,T 55,VE,,T 56,VE,COASTAL FLOODPLAIN,T 57,VE,RIVERINE FLOODWAY SHOWN IN COASTAL ZONE,T 58,X,,F 59,X,0.2 PCT ANNUAL CHANCE FLOOD HAZARD,F 60,X,0.2 PCT ANNUAL CHANCE FLOOD HAZARD,T 61,X,0.2 PCT ANNUAL CHANCE FLOOD HAZARD,U 62,X,0.2 PCT ANNUAL CHANCE FLOOD HAZARD CONTAINED IN CHANNEL,F 63,X,0.2 PCT ANNUAL CHANCE FLOOD HAZARD CONTAINED IN STRUCTURE,F 64,X,0.2 PCT ANNUAL CHANCE FLOOD HAZARD IN COASTAL ZONE,F 65,X,0.2 PCT ANNUAL CHANCE FLOOD HAZARD IN COMBINED RIVERINE AND COASTAL ZONE,F 66,X,"1 PCT CONTAINED IN STRUCTURE, COMMUNITY ENCROACHMENT",F 67,X,"1 PCT CONTAINED IN STRUCTURE, FLOODWAY",F 68,X,1 PCT DEPTH LESS THAN 1 FOOT,F 69,X,1 PCT DRAINAGE AREA LESS THAN 1 SQUARE MILE,F 70,X,1 PCT FUTURE CONDITIONS,F 71,X,1 PCT FUTURE CONDITIONS CONTAINED IN STRUCTURE,F 72,X,"1 PCT FUTURE CONDITIONS, COMMUNITY ENCROACHMENT",F 73,X,"1 PCT FUTURE CONDITIONS, FLOODWAY",F 74,X,"1 PCT FUTURE IN STRUCTURE, COMMUNITY ENCROACHMENT",F 75,X,"1 PCT FUTURE IN STRUCTURE, FLOODWAY",F 76,X,AREA OF MINIMAL FLOOD HAZARD, 77,X,AREA OF MINIMAL FLOOD HAZARD,F 78,X,AREA OF MINIMAL FLOOD HAZARD,T 79,X,AREA OF MINIMAL FLOOD HAZARD,U 80,X,AREA OF SPECIAL CONSIDERATION,F 81,X,AREA WITH REDUCED FLOOD RISK DUE TO LEVEE,F 82,X,AREA WITH REDUCED FLOOD RISK DUE TO LEVEE,T 83,X,FLOWAGE EASEMENT AREA,F 84,X,1 PCT FUTURE CONDITIONS,T 85,AH,COASTAL FLOODPLAIN,T 86,AE,,U 87,AE,FLOODWAY,F 88,X,AREA WITH REDUCED FLOOD HAZARD DUE TO ACCREDITED LEVEE SYSTEM,F 89,X,530,F 90,VE,100,T 91,AE,100,T 92,A99,AREA WITH REDUCED FLOOD HAZARD DUE TO LEVEE SYSTEM,T 93,A99,AREA WITH REDUCED FLOOD HAZARD DUE TO NON-ACCREDITED LEVEE SYSTEM,T 94,A,COMBINED RIVERINE AND COASTAL FLOODPLAIN,T 250,AREA NOT INCLUDED,Not Mapped by FEMA, Questions? 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