Rankings · Place

Highest religious adherence by state

Share of residents on a religious body’s rolls.

This measure has no better end. The order describes the states, it does not rank them — see the other direction.

Adherents reported by the 372 religious bodies that took part in the 2020 US Religion Census, as a share of population. Adherents means members, their children and others who participate — broader than membership, narrower than belief. Read the gap carefully: those bodies account for 48.6% of the US population nationally, so the remainder are not counted as irreligious. They are people whose tradition did not take part, who attend somewhere that keeps no rolls, or who believe without belonging. A county at 35% has 35% on a participating body’s rolls and this says nothing at all about the other 65%. Some totals are estimated where a body could not supply county detail, and a few counties exceed 100% because bodies report where a congregation sits rather than where its members sleep; those are capped.

  1. 1Utah73.2%
  2. 2Alabama63.4%
  3. 3Louisiana63.2%
  4. 4Oklahoma60.9%
  5. 5Mississippi59.3%
  6. 6Arkansas57.5%
  7. 7District of Columbia56.4%
  8. 8Tennessee55.5%
  9. 9South Dakota55.1%
  10. 10North Dakota55.0%
  11. 11Texas54.8%
  12. 12South Carolina52.6%
  13. 13New Mexico52.5%
  14. 14New Jersey52.2%
  15. 15North Carolina52.1%
  16. 16Rhode Island51.5%
  17. 17New York51.3%
  18. 18Illinois50.8%
  19. 19Georgia50.7%
  20. 20Idaho49.8%
  21. 21Minnesota49.5%
  22. 22Kentucky49.3%
  23. 23Nebraska49.2%
  24. 24Massachusetts48.6%
  25. 25Missouri48.3%
  26. 26Wisconsin48.0%
  27. 27Ohio47.8%
  28. 28Florida47.0%
  29. 29Pennsylvania46.9%
  30. 30Kansas46.0%
  31. 31Virginia45.8%
  32. 32California44.8%
  33. 33Iowa44.8%
  34. 34Arizona44.0%
  35. 35Maryland43.4%
  36. 36Indiana42.1%
  37. 37Nevada41.6%
  38. 38Delaware41.2%
  39. 39Washington41.2%
  40. 40Hawaii40.3%
  41. 41Wyoming40.3%
  42. 42Michigan39.7%
  43. 43West Virginia37.7%
  44. 44Vermont37.6%
  45. 45Colorado35.4%
  46. 46Alaska35.1%
  47. 47Montana34.7%
  48. 48Oregon33.1%
  49. 49Maine30.8%
  50. 50New Hampshire27.1%

Not ranked, because this measure is not published for them: Connecticut.

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Source: 2020 US Religion Census (ASARB). · How this is built