Bel Air North, Maryland

Area Profile

31,302 residents. Public schools, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Bel Air North, in Harford County.

Area Score unavailable

Missing required signals: opportunity, growth. AreaProfile withholds a score rather than inferring the missing dimensions.

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
SchoolsTop 24% of 2,668 published cities72
Housing affordabilityTop 14% of 4,223 published cities97
ClimateTop 49% of 4,223 published cities71
Physical resilienceTop 7% of 4,182 published cities94
Access2907th of 4,226 published cities86
Economic stabilityTop 5% of 4,226 published cities82
The quick read

In the public schools here, 20% of students met the state standard in mathematics, with 15.6 students for every teacher.

Housing is more affordable relative to local incomes than in most published city profiles: rent takes 14% of median household income and the median home is 3.3 times it.

Natural-hazard exposure is lower than in most comparable published city profiles, placing Bel Air North in the top 7% for physical resilience.

At a glance

Population
31,302
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$137,336
Top 7% nationally
Density
1,960/sq mi
16.0 sq mi of land
Median age
41.2
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Harford County
Maryland
Metro area
Baltimore-Columbia-Towson, MD
Nearest major airport
BWI
31 mi · Baltimore/Washington Intl Thurgood Marshall
Median home value
$446,500
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

48% of adults hold a four-year degree, higher than 88% of measured US cities.

Household income is higher than at least 93% of measured US cities.

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$8,248$137,336Top 7%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$2,295$55,557Top 13%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate3.5%Bottom 17%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute35.8 minTop 14%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher48.5%Top 12%2024 ACS 5-Year
Labor force participation68.5%Top 22%2024 ACS 5-Year
Mean annual wage$76,370Top 27%2025 OEWS
Median annual wage$59,070Top 25%2025 OEWS
Median household income, successive ACS releases
2021202220232024138k126k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $137,336 in the 2024 ACS 5-Year. Consecutive releases share four years of sample, so AreaProfile shows them as a record of successive estimates and does not compute a year-over-year change from them.
Largest occupations — Baltimore-Columbia-Towson, MD
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
General and Operations Managers44,960$117,040
Retail Salespersons39,920$34,800
Registered Nurses30,930$99,550
Secretaries and Administrative Assistants, Except Legal, Medical, and Executive29,780$49,220
Laborers and Freight, Stock, and Material Movers, Hand28,350$43,250
Home Health and Personal Care Aides26,880$37,640

Occupational employment and wages are published for metropolitan areas rather than for individual cities or ZIP areas, so these describe the wider labor market this location sits in. 2025 OEWS, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

20% of students met the state standard in mathematics and 37% in reading, across the schools here that reported results.

There are 15.6 students for every full-time teacher, fewer than in most measured places.

Public schools
11
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
15.6
across all schools here
Math proficiency
20.3%
Top 26% in Maryland
Reading proficiency
37.2%
Top 19% in Maryland
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Bel Air HighHarford County Public Schools1,34115.6
Southampton MiddleHarford County Public Schools1,19215.33%42%
Bel Air MiddleHarford County Public Schools1,08014.24%44%
Homestead/Wakefield ElementaryHarford County Public Schools1,07117.327%35%
Red Pump Elementary SchoolHarford County Public Schools69615.132%35%
Hickory ElementaryHarford County Public Schools63515.925%32%
Emmorton ElementaryHarford County Public Schools58416.729%35%
Ring Factory ElementaryHarford County Public Schools54116.431%33%
Bel Air ElementaryHarford County Public Schools52116.327%45%
Forest Hill ElementaryHarford County Public Schools45114.526%26%
Forest Lakes ElementaryHarford County Public Schools44714.928%32%

22.2% of students here are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. That describes the circumstances families arrive with rather than how the schools perform, which is why AreaProfile shows it and does not score it.

Public schools only, from the NCES Common Core of Data. Schools are placed by ZIP code, so this is which schools are in this place rather than which one a particular address is zoned for — district boundaries do not follow municipal ones, and enrollment zones change. Fully virtual schools are excluded: they enroll students from across the state while reporting one administrative address, and counting them here would describe a school population this place does not have. The assessment covers grades 3 through 8, so a high school shows no proficiency figure — a dash in those columns means the test was not given at that school, not that it performed badly. Proficiency is measured against Maryland’s own standard, so it compares cleanly within the state and only broadly against other states; AreaProfile therefore ranks it within state. The directory is current, while the proficiency figures are from the last school year with national coverage before the pandemic interrupted testing.

Housing & affordability

How it’s calculated →

Median rent of $1,624 takes 14% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 3.3 times median household income here, above the historic benchmark of about three times income.

Rent as a share of income
14.2%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
3.3×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$1,624
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$446,500
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income3.25Top 41%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate90.6%Top 21%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±40411,218Top 5%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$164$1,624Top 17%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$12,167$446,500Top 15%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income14.2%Bottom 20%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate1.7%Bottom 15%2024 ACS 5-Year

Both affordability measures come from the same ACS release as the income they are compared with, so the comparison is like for like. They describe housing cost against local earnings and are not a cost-of-living index — transport, groceries, healthcare, insurance and taxes are not included, and a place can look affordable here and still be expensive to live in for reasons this does not capture.

Growth & development

How it’s calculated →

No building-permit activity is published for this location by the Census Building Permits Survey.

Weather & climate

6 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 86°F and January a low of 25°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 47.1 inches.

Air quality measures a median index of 42, in the Good band, and about 6 days a year pass 100, the threshold at which the air is unhealthy for sensitive groups.

10°30°50°70°90°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station ABERDEEN PHILLIPS FLD, 12.2 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND4.8"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index64.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation47.1"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low25°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high86°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months61991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 10062024 calendar year
Median air quality index42.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing44°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
42
Good on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
64
90th percentile index
Days above 100
6
unhealthy for sensitive groups

A comfortable median and a bad tail are different problems. Wildfire smoke and summer ozone show up in the worst tenth of days, not in the middle of the year.

Climate figures are thirty-year normals, not current conditions. They describe what a typical year looks like rather than what the weather is doing today. Air quality is measured rather than modelled, by EPA monitors, and published by county only where a monitor sits — roughly half the counties AreaProfile publishes have one, and the rest show nothing rather than an estimate. Air masses are regional, so a county reading describes the air over a place reasonably well, but it is still the county reading.

Physical risk

94 / 100
Physical resilience

The hazards accounting for most of this area's expected annual loss are hurricane, earthquake and drought.

HurricaneModerate
EarthquakeModerate
DroughtModerate
LandslideModerate
AvalancheModerate

Low or minimal exposure: winter weather, heat wave, lightning, inland flooding, strong wind, cold wave, ice storm, coastal flooding, tornado, wildfire, hail.

Hazard ratings are AreaProfile calculations derived from the FEMA National Risk Index v1.20.0 (December 2025). FEMA publishes at county level. City values are the population-weighted mean of the counties the city overlaps, using AreaProfile place-to-county land-area weights. FEMA does not endorse this presentation. Higher physical resilience means lower exposure.

These are deaths, not offences. AreaProfile does not publish reported crime, and this is not a substitute for it — it says nothing about burglary, theft or assault.

Harford County records 2.0 homicide deaths per 100,000 residents a year, lower than most counties measured. The CDC does not publish this below county level.

Firearm deaths of all intents run at 8.3 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 16.2 per 100,000 residents in Harford County.

Homicide
2.0
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
8.3
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
16.2
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
14.4
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths

Firearm deaths count every intent together, and nationally the majority are suicides rather than homicides. The two columns overlap and should not be added.

Age-adjusted rates from provisional death certificate records, published by the CDC for Harford County as a whole — these rates are not published below county level. A county can hold both a dense city centre and a suburb whose experience of it is nothing alike, so this describes the county around Bel Air North rather than Bel Air North itself. That is why AreaProfile shows these figures and does not put them in the Area Score. Where fewer than ten deaths were recorded the count is suppressed at source, and a rate built on single figures moves sharply between releases. What this measure has that reported crime does not: a death certificate is filed whether or not the local police agency submitted a return that year, so the figures stay comparable between places and over time.

What this profile does not cover

Three things people look for are missing from every AreaProfile page, and each is missing for a reason rather than by oversight. The Area Score is calculated without them and the weighting is documented on the methodology page.

Reported crime
The FBI’s Crime Data Explorer is the only source for reported offences with national coverage and a published method, and it requires an API key AreaProfile does not hold. Arrest counts, news volume and commercial “safety scores” are not substituted in the meantime. What is published above under Safety is a different measurement — deaths rather than offences, from death certificates rather than police returns — and it covers no property crime at all.
Taxes
No tax dataset has met the source admission test for coverage, transparent methodology and update cadence. Nothing here is individualized tax advice.
Full cost of living
No public source publishes one with national coverage and a documented method. Housing affordability above is computed from published rent, price and income, and excludes transport, groceries, healthcare, insurance and taxes — commuting cost in particular tends to offset suburban housing savings.

Access

5 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 31 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Baltimore/Washington Intl Thurgood MarshallBWI31 mi10,503 ft
Harrisburg IntlMDT49 mi10,001 ft
Philadelphia IntlPHL64 mi12,000 ft

Airport identity, position and runway data come from the FAA. “Major airport” is an AreaProfile classification — a public-use civil airport with a paved runway of at least 8,000 feet — not an FAA hub designation. Distances are straight-line, not driving distance.

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Other cities in Baltimore-Columbia-Towson, MD

Same metropolitan area, measured the same way
CityCountyPopulationArea ScoreCompare
BaltimoreBaltimore city573,24359vs Bel Air North
ColumbiaHoward County104,338vs Bel Air North
Ellicott CityHoward County75,257vs Bel Air North
Glen BurnieAnne Arundel County72,590vs Bel Air North
DundalkBaltimore County65,969vs Bel Air North
TowsonBaltimore County58,679vs Bel Air North
SevernAnne Arundel County58,402vs Bel Air North
Bel Air SouthHarford County58,137vs Bel Air North
OdentonAnne Arundel County45,002vs Bel Air North
CatonsvilleBaltimore County43,368vs Bel Air North
AnnapolisAnne Arundel County40,72080vs Bel Air North
EssexBaltimore County40,580vs Bel Air North

Every city here is measured on the same scale from the same source releases, so the comparison is like for like. A higher Area Score reflects AreaProfile’s standardized weighting rather than a judgment about which is the better place to live.

Data & methodology

Used forSourceSource periodUpdated
AccessFederal Aviation Administration
Airports (NASR) — Aeronautical Data Delivery Service
NASR current cycle28-day NASR cycle
Physical riskFederal Emergency Management Agency
National Risk Index
National Risk Index December 2025 (v1.20.0)Periodic dataset versions (v1.20.0 current)
ClimateNOAA National Centers for Environmental Information
U.S. Climate Normals 1991–2020 (Monthly)
1991-2020 NormalsEvery ten years (next release follows the 2001–2030 period)
JobsU.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics
2025 OEWSAnnual (spring release)
Demographics, Housing, Income, JobsU.S. Census Bureau
American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates (Table-Based Summary File)
2024 ACS 5-YearAnnual (5-year estimates released each December)
safetyU.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics
Provisional county-level mortality by intent
April, 2025 to March, 2026Quarterly, with a rolling twelve-month window alongside complete calendar years
schoolsU.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics
Common Core of Data and EDFacts assessments
2019-20 school year; 2024-25 school yearDirectory annually; assessment results as EDFacts releases them
ClimateU.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Air Quality System
Daily Air Quality Index by county
2024 calendar yearAnnually, once a calendar year is complete

Profile recalculated August 30, 2026. Recalculation is not the same as new source data — each figure above shows the period its source actually covers. Read the full methodology or browse every source.

ZIP codes in Bel Air North

2 published ZIP profiles
ZIPPopulationMedian household incomeArea Score
2101438,707$116,970
2105017,466$125,208