The 89117 zip code in Las Vegas holds the most registered hobbyist drone users in the country.
Researchers at the Center for the Study of the Drone at Bard College combed through a database by the Federal Aviation Administration of every drone registration up to Oct. 31 to determine the areas with the most number of registered drones.
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As of Oct. 31, there were 836,796 hobbyist users and 106,739 nonhobbyist drones registered with the Federal Aviation Administration, according to the analysis by Bard College.
The FAA implemented a rule in December 2015 requiring that anybody operating a drone weighing more than 250 grams in U.S. airspace must register with the agency and pay a $5 fee.
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The 10 states with the largest number of registered non-hobbyist drone systems are California, Texas, Florida, New York, North Carolina, Georgia, Colorado, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Collectively, these states are home to 55 percent of all registered non-hobbyist drones. California alone accounts for nearly 20 percent of all registered non-hobbyist drones.
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The 10 states with the fewest registered users are Rhode Island, Vermont, Delaware, Wyoming, South Dakota, West Virginia, North Dakota, New Hampshire, Maine, and Alaska. The five states with the greatest number of non-hobbyist drones per capita are, in descending order, Alaska (71 drones per 100,000 residents), Idaho (71 per 100,000), North Dakota (64 per 100,000), Colorado (61 per 100,000), and Montana (59 per 100,000).
Together, these states account for 5.4 percent of all drones, even though they only make up about three percent of the U.S. population. Washington, D.C. has more than 98 drones per 100,000 residents, even though the city falls within restricted airspace where drone operations are prohibited without a special permission.
