Rankings · Place

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

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