Cuius Regio, Eius Religio – this Latin saying applies to Europe, and to the principle that ended religious warfare: “Whose region (it is), whose religion (shall predominate)”. But it sprang to mind when seeing this map of the US, showing the leading church bodies per county. The map demonstrates the important link between region and religion, or to put it more precisely: where you live is a predictive factor as to where you worship.
The map highlights 8 major Christian denominations, showing where they represent a plurality (and in counties marked with a + at least 50%) of the relevant counties’ population. This shows that there are quite a few remarkably contiguous religious blocks in the US
The most notable of those contiguous areas is that of the Baptists, a term that is quite rightly almost synonymous with Southern Baptist (a bit like how Orthodox in Europe equals Eastern Orthodox; as “western orthodoxy” is referred to as Catholicism). Baptists are the biggest congregations in nigh on all counties of nine states (Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee), and are a major presence in West Virginia (where Methodists dominate the northeast), Virginia (where the selfsame Methodists have a foothold in the border area with West Virginia) and Missouri (the area around St Louis being majoritarily Catholic). Florida, Louisiana and Texas are split between a Catholic South and a Baptist North – to a large part due to the large, traditionally Catholic communities of Latinos in southern Texas and Florida and of Cajuns (French-Americans) in Louisiana.
Another block, but not nearly as neatly contiguous, is the Lutheran one, present in the northern Midwest and West, best represented in Minnesota, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa and Wisconsin. Lutheran here often is synonymous with German-American or more broadly speaking Northern European – again, Lutheran conjures up certain geographical, not to say climatological images; a form of worship designed to survive the grimmest of winters. It would be very hard to rhyme a Latin culture with the Lutheran religion.
I don’t know is there’s a similar link thinkable in the Methodist case. The Methodist areas are also much smaller and much more disparate: in West Virginia (as mentioned) and adjacently in areas of Pennsylvania, Virginia and Ohio. There’s a sprinkling of Methodist-dominated counties in Maryland, Delaware, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas. Strangely, most Methodist-dominated counties lie between two parallels of longitude determined by the northern border of Nebraska and Pennsylvania and the southern border of Kansas and Virginia.
The Mormons dominate every county in their state of Utah, and have proceeded from there to become numerically superior in some counties of adjacent states, such as Arizona, Colorado, Idaho and Nevada – they are the biggest congregation in the county that holds Las Vegas.
Most of the other counties have Catholics as the most numerous congregation, leading to a somewhat misleading map. Catholicism very often is the biggest denomination by default, owing to the fact that their institutional unity boosts ‘market share’ but at the same time masks differences between different wings of the Roman church that are as great as between denominations of Protestantism that have separated over theological differences.
On the other side of the bums on pews versus quality of purpose spectrum are the Mennonites (among whom the Amish are the strictest of the strict), dominating in very few counties, but where they do, often in two or three adjacent counties (as in northern Indiana, central Ohio and central Kansas).
Quite puzzling finally is the denomination labelling itself as Christian, dominating in central Illinois and Indiana. I thought they all were. Christian, that is…
This map was sent in many times, but most recently by Jack Alexander.
The Mormons dominate every county in their state of Utah, and have proceeded from there to become numerically superior in some counties of adjacent states, such as Arizona, Colorado, Idaho and Nevada – they are the biggest congregation in the county that holds Las Vegas.
Not quite – Las Vegas is in Clark County, which is the southernmost county in Nevada. It is shown as blue on the map.
Comment by Peter — January 27, 2008 @ 5:02 am
Quite puzzling finally is the denomination labelling itself as Christian, dominating in central Illinois and Indiana. I thought they all were. Christian, that is…
When it’s used to refer to a specific denomination, “Christian Church” usually refers to one of the denominations that grew out of the Campbell-Stone Restoration Movement of the 1800s. The Disciples of Christ is
Comment by OriGuy — January 27, 2008 @ 5:47 am
Quite puzzling finally is the denomination labelling itself as Christian, dominating in central Illinois and Indiana. I thought they all were. Christian, that is…
When it’s used to refer to a specific denomination, “Christian Church” usually refers to one of the denominations that grew out of the Campbell-Stone Restoration Movement of the 1800s. The Disciples of Christ is one of the largest of these and one of the few that has a central organization.
The churches of the Restoration Movement have split over the years over a number of issues, most notably the use of instruments in worship.
Comment by OriGuy — January 27, 2008 @ 5:55 am
“…a form of worship designed to survive the grimmest of winters.”
As a Lutheran seminarian, I laughed out loud at this (Re: Lutherans).
Comment by Ted Carnahan — January 27, 2008 @ 6:25 am
“… the large, traditionally Catholic communities … of Cajuns (French-Americans) in Louisiana”: Cajuns are the most famous Catholic constituency in south Louisiana (where I grew up), but they’re very much a minority. The majority of the Catholic population are Southern European, especially French, but also Italian and German — and Irish: the people who settled New York also came to New Orleans, hence the similar accents. (The colonial Louisiana French came mostly directly from France during the French colonial period, and not by way of Acadia, as the Cajuns did.)
“Lutheran here often is synonymous with German-American”: Very true, but Germany is even today only about half Lutheran. The southern parts of Germany, including Bavaria and most of the Rheinland, have remained Catholic, and many Midwestern settlers (including my wife’s ancestors) came from there. Of course, Minnesota and parts of Michigan also were heavily settled by Scandinavians, who are almost exclusively Lutheran.
“differences between different wings of the Roman church that are as great as between denominations of Protestantism”: I probably shouldn’t, but I can’t resist registering some surprise at this. Certainly there are sets with differences, but I wouldn’t call them *wings*, exactly. Even the Jesuits and the Jansenists were closer than, say, the Baptists and the Lutherans. But that’s only my opinion.
Great article — I’d seen this map before, but I always enjoy your analyses!
Comment by Michael — January 27, 2008 @ 6:58 am
I’m not seeing an other 9 on the map but i’d really like to know where it is ’cause that sounds like heaven on earth to me (pun intended). :)
Comment by Geoff — January 27, 2008 @ 7:04 am
I agree with Michael’s take on the Catholicism point. It’s not really even opinion that there aren’t wings as different from each other as the various Protestant churches, it’s essentially fact. That’s the effect of a dedicated hierarchy. Even the Eastern Rite churches don’t have enormous differences with the main line of the type suggested, but even if they did, there simply aren’t that many of them so they won’t change the nationwide numbers.
My guess is that the way the map looks has more to do with how it seems to be, in personal experience, that people raised Catholic are more likely to continue identify with that group even if they no longer actively practice than many of the other churches. Sort of like Judaism but to a much lesser degree. That leads to a plurality in many places, but is why there’s relatively few majority counties.
Comment by Andrew — January 27, 2008 @ 8:09 am
“Numbers are reported by each church”.
In other words, if a county would have a 90% majority of people who aren’t into religion at all, you wouldn’t even know it from this map.
Comment by Kim Hartveld — January 27, 2008 @ 9:13 am
Nice map.
Luther was a German, but in America Lutheranism is just as synonymous with Scandinavian as it is German. Do you ever listen to Garrison Keillor’s “A Prairie Home Companion”? There aren’t many German last names for the people of Lake Wobegon.
I had always thought of the old ALC (headquartered in MN) as Scandinavian and the old LCA (headquartered in NY, but with many congregations in PA) as German, but it seems several synods of both ethnicities united to form the two bodies according to Wikipedia. Both the ALC and ELC united in 1978 to form the ELCA.
Comment by phil — January 27, 2008 @ 11:22 am
@ Peter:
You’re right. The county in question is Lincoln, north of Vegas.
@ All:
Thanks for your input; it’s quite obvious my interest in religion is greater than my knowledge of it. Please consider my uneducated guesses on the subject as nothing more than that…
Comment by strangemaps — January 27, 2008 @ 12:28 pm
@Geoff: “Other: 9″ is Loving County, Texas, population 60.
Comment by IOT — January 27, 2008 @ 1:44 pm
[...] Read it. By “Christian” I presume they mean do-it-yourself Protestants. [...]
Pingback by DYSPEPSIA GENERATION » Blog Archive » Leading Church Bodies, 2000 — January 27, 2008 @ 2:16 pm
“…as “western orthodoxy” is referred to as Catholicism…”
Uh, wrong. I’m sure the Romans would like to think of “Catholicism” as “western orthodoxy”, but none of the Orthodox would accept that. Roman Catholics haven’t been Orthodox for nigh unto a thousand years. The term “Eastern Orthodox” is meant to distinguish Eastern *Orthodox* from Eastern non-Orthodox, like the non-Chalcedonian churches, not to distinguish between “eastern” and “western” Orthodox.
Comment by Tim of Angle — January 27, 2008 @ 2:24 pm
I saw a similar map in a college geography class, and one of the interesting things that I learned from there was when you take a look at the second-most popular church in each county, much of that map was dominated by Methodists. Thus there are more Methodists than this map would suggest.
Comment by Bismuth — January 27, 2008 @ 3:16 pm
At first sight, this map pictures the US as predominantly Catholic. It suddenly appears hard to explain why it was such a breakthrough for Kennedy to become (the first Catholic) president.
But wait, what would the map look like with the Protestant categories lumped together?
And what would happen if the map took population density and minorities into account? After all, California and New York aren’t exclusively inhabited by Catholics, if I remember correctly. E.g. speckle the map, with each category getting one speckle on the map per, say, 250,000 members. Some of New York’s speckles will be drifting out at sea, but on the whole, the picture will be much more accurate.
Finally, what happens if we try to measure the relative influence of each category? E.g. count only the registered voters, or count (if possible) not heads, but incomes. What will happen to the blue on the map? My guess is that it would shrink on the whole, but not everywhere.
Now take options like these and build them into Google Earth. The thought alone makes me drool …
Comment by rp — January 27, 2008 @ 3:24 pm
@IOT and Geoff: Loving County, Texas, may be listed as “none” because the only church in the county is non-denominational, likely out of necessity since the county is hardly big enough for more than one church.
Comment by Kyle — January 27, 2008 @ 3:54 pm
So many Counties, so many Invisible Friends
Comment by lordhutton — January 27, 2008 @ 3:57 pm
Re: the east-to-west distribution of Methodists, it might actually be a settlement pattern. I haven’t read it for years, but Kevin Phillips’ 1969 book “The Emerging Republican Majority” talks a lot about streams of migration of this type. Really, any map geek should read it.
Comment by Dan Miller — January 27, 2008 @ 4:04 pm
In the research study I work on, respondents are coded merely “Christian” when they refuse to categorize themselves as belonging to a certain denomination. I’d be interested in how the data for the source study was gathered–if it was based on respondent surveys, congregational surveys, or other. that, and I’d be very interested in the sampling frame, as well.
Comment by Jodie — January 27, 2008 @ 4:11 pm
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Pingback by Religions by region « Later On — January 27, 2008 @ 5:47 pm
Something that might be a little misleading is the numbers of counties corresponding to certain denominations listed in the key: it looks as though, on average, counties in the South are fairly small, so there are simply more of them. This is particularly true of Georgia; compare it to similarly-sized states like Iowa or Wisconsin, for instance.
Comment by Matt — January 27, 2008 @ 7:33 pm
I am wondering if “Christian” on this map means anything similar to “American” on the map of “US Counties by Ancestry”, a copy of which is on Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Census-2000-Data-Top-US-Ancestries-by-County.jpg .
In fact, it is even MORE interesting when one compares the two maps side by side, as @Michael, @phil, @rp, and others suggested. For example, the counties that denote “English” heritage that border Utah are also the Mormon ones, the “Baptist” counties are largly the “African” and “American” ones, the Norwegian areas (yay Norwegian! (I’m Norwegian background on my mother’s side)) are also Lutheran (hey, my mom was raised Lutheran! I wonder if there’s a coincidence … ;) ) and Loving County is an anomaly on both maps, because of small sample size.
On the other hand, there are differences, like states with ethnically homogeneous backgrounds (Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana), are also very religiously diverse.
Comment by David — January 27, 2008 @ 8:00 pm
Very interesting map. The only thing I would mention is that I live in North Carolina and it definately seems like Lutherans are the dominant sect in at least western NC.
Comment by Justin Roepel — January 27, 2008 @ 8:36 pm
Jodie and others, see Origuy’s comment early in the thread about “Christian.”
These colored dots reflect ethnic settlement patterns pretty exactly. I would wager that this effect weakens over time.
Comment by Assistant Village Idiot — January 27, 2008 @ 9:31 pm
A few things to note:
1: Catholics probably have the highest number of “Majority” counties, with Baptists, Lutherans and LDSers (Mormons) leading the greatest number of the rest. The two remaining “majority” counties are Reformed churches.
2: Mormons and Lutherans tend to have more of “their” colored counties as “majority counties.” Especially the Mormons, but the Lutherans in Minnesota and North Dakota seem to be concentrated, as well.
3: Methodist don’t have any “Majority” counties to claim. When you include Bismuth’s comment on the Methodists (#14), it makes sense that they would be a bit more scattered (relative to other populations) and the others.
4: As for the Christian definition, you’d be amazed how many “nondenominational” groups there are out there who merely call themselves “Christian” churches. It would make sense where some counties, Christian Non-Denominational would become the largest group in many counties.
Comment by Don Hargraves — January 27, 2008 @ 9:45 pm
@Phil #9
The LCA and ALC resulted from mergers in the early 60s of several smaller bodies each. These earlier bodies were strongly identified with ethnic background, while the ALC and LCA were not. The LCA was composed of Germans, Swedes, Danes and Finlanders; the ALC of Germans, Norwegians and some other Danes.
ALC and LCA merged with AELC (a group that had broken from LC – Missouri Synod) in 1988. LC – Missouri Synod and LC – Wisconsin Synod (the 2nd and 3rd largest Lutheran denominations) are primarily of German-American origin.
Comment by NR — January 27, 2008 @ 10:42 pm
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Pingback by Tapera » mapa celeste — January 28, 2008 @ 1:13 am
[...] Regionalism and Religiosity – where is your denomination (or cult) dominating? Posted by: Travis Prinzi @ 8:17 pm | Trackback | Permalink [...]
Pingback by The Boar’s Head Tavern » check out this map — January 28, 2008 @ 1:17 am
This shows that some demographic maps can mislead, unintentionally, if people aren’t too careful. For example, in much of Baptist Texas, those counties also have large groups of Methodists. There may be more Methodists in some of those counties than in areas where Methodists predominate.
And as to the Mormons, the original proposed boundaries of the State of Deseret would have included almost all of Nevada, and significant chunks of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Idaho, Oregon and California. Las Vegas’s site was picked by Brigham Young; the Mormons settled San Bernardino, California, and Mesa, Arizona. It’s not so much that the LDS have spread out of Salt Lake City as other faiths have come to live in Mormon territory, now outnumbering them.
Great map. Fantastic discussion starter. I was surprised that Mennonites have so many people in any county. I was surprised to see Catholics dominant in so much of the West, where you can’t tell it on the ground.
Am I just missing it, or did you cite a source for the map?
Comment by Ed Darrell — January 28, 2008 @ 2:21 am
[...] Maps (a nifty blog, if you aren’t familiar with it) has an interest map of from 2000 of Regionalism and Religiosity that is worth a gander. Filed under: US Politics, Religion | [...]
Pingback by PoliBlog ™: A Rough Draft of my Thoughts » Maping Religion by Region (the USA) — January 28, 2008 @ 2:42 am
“the Baptists, a term that is quite rightly almost synonymous with Southern Baptist”
Well, no: there are more Baptists outside the SBC than in, and many of them are now banding together in the New Baptist Covenant Celebration:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/us/27baptists.html
Comment by jayskew — January 28, 2008 @ 3:46 am
Keep in mind this is showing pluralities and majorities of people who identify as Christian, which Wikipedia says is close to 80% of Americans.
The New historical atlas of religion in America (Oxford University Press, 2001) slices it a little differently by showing only majorities, and there you see a strong Catholic dominance in cities, a few Jewish counties where you might not expect them, and a whole lot of blank. I can’t say what page, get me to a library.
http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/wcpa/top3mset/28c6e2f68d566e6ca19afeb4da09e526.html
This is a great map still though.
Comment by caleb — January 28, 2008 @ 6:33 am
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Pingback by in god we trust « What Black Men Think — January 28, 2008 @ 11:18 am
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Pingback by Statele cerstine ale Americii « B a r z i l a i - e n - D a n — January 28, 2008 @ 4:12 pm
[...] Johnny Brower A blog. « Jimmy Eat World This Spring!… Map Of U.S. with Dominant Denominations… January 28, 2008 This is an interesting map that I found on marko’s blog. The original is here. [...]
Pingback by Map Of U.S. with Dominant Denominations… « Johnny Brower — January 28, 2008 @ 4:25 pm
Another intriguing point is that the borders between zones often follow state borders. For instance the Baptist zone extends up to the Missouri-Iowa, then stops right there. The Kansas-Nebraska border border has 22 Lutheran counties on one side, including 9 adjacent border counties and 8 2nd tier counties, but only 2 on the other side.
The Baptist zone similarly wraps around southern Indiana.
Comment by Rich Rostrom — January 28, 2008 @ 5:18 pm
“Other” has a majority bullet in four Oregon counties. Which “other” religion is that, I wonder?
Comment by dbomp — January 28, 2008 @ 5:58 pm
(Oops. The “Other” ones don’t have bullets, but tiny numbers. Pentecostal, eh.)
Comment by dbomp — January 28, 2008 @ 6:08 pm
Unfortunately “Jedi” still not largest religion in any county. Tho’ I s’pose the campaign is really going on only in the UK.
Comment by ceranto — January 28, 2008 @ 6:49 pm
[...] can go here to check out a better picture of the map and read the whole descriptive [...]
Pingback by Denominational Divide « Love without Agenda — January 28, 2008 @ 7:21 pm
@29: The source is in Mexico.
Comment by Lurker — January 28, 2008 @ 7:27 pm
@5 (Michael)
You are completely correct in pointing out that Cajuns are a minority of the Catholic population in south Louisiana (and hence the population in general). There’s a few more details I’d like to cover to better explain the results of the map.
The majority of south Louisiana’s population is based around Baton Rouge and New Orleans in the southeastern part of the state. This area does not have a large number of Cajun inhabitants. Cajuns mostly occupy less populated areas to the west of these cities. Most of the parishes (counties) in south central Louisiana with one of the “50% black dots” over them have a large percentage of Cajun inhabitants. So while most of the Catholics in south Louisiana aren’t Cajun, a large part of the map marked “Catholic” in south Louisiana is reflective of Cajun influence.
Comment by Boznia — January 28, 2008 @ 8:12 pm
The “Methodist Parallel” from Delaware to Kansas is most likely from the frontier settlement days, when the Methodists would ride out along the National Road (now I-70) as circuit preachers. Methodist churches were commonly the first Christian establishment in newly settled areas.
Comment by cbrunette — January 28, 2008 @ 8:45 pm
Hehehe, I live in a “Catholic majority” county in Washington, but we have as many Mormons as we do Catholics, I swear…
Comment by Jersey — January 28, 2008 @ 8:50 pm
The list of religions in the “Other” group does include non-Christian religions, so is it correct to assume that this is a map of only Christians? If so, the title of the map is misleading, because the religiosity of many Americans (6 million+ Jews and 4 million+ Muslims most notably), is not mapped, even though their inclusion would not change the map’s colors.
Comment by Michael J — January 28, 2008 @ 9:00 pm
Baptist tops the list in part because it consolidates black Baptists and white Baptists.
Comment by ohwilleke — January 28, 2008 @ 9:04 pm
Regarding those unaffiliated, Glenmary does keep track of the “unclaimed” as well as those claimed by denominations. Glenmary is a Catholic organization devoted to evangelization, and one of the main purposes of its work manifested here (the only other comprehensive county level study of religious affiliation is the American Religious Identification Survey out of the City University of New York which is self-identification survey rather than denominational record based) is to identify fruitful places to win over new Catholics.
Comment by ohwilleke — January 28, 2008 @ 9:10 pm
Also those churches who label themselves as simply “Christian” are generally non-denominational in that they are not under one of the predominate denominations because of doctrinal disagreements on what would be considered “minutia” – and so they just agree to disagree on points that would otherwise have them come under a particular denomination…
Others simply hold to a doctrinal creed, or specific orthodox view without being directly under a governmental church organization.
Also, many of the western states are sparsely populated per square mile, (Except on the coast, and especially California) while the eastern ones are populated more heavily.
Also, labels can be deceiving in that many Christians from different denominations consider themselves reformed, which indicates a Calvinistic theological worldview.
Cool map.
Comment by The Reformed Faith Weblog — January 28, 2008 @ 9:15 pm
As commnet 48 specifies that those counties that are Christian are “non-denominational” specifically in the central Indiana counties one would find the Church of God(Anderson) probably depicted the most. Though we are “non-denominational” our roots are certainly more anti-sectarian. That is we come out of a tradition called the “Holiness Movement” similar to methodism in theology but strangely different in organization.
Well, there you have it–from a Church of God goer (anti-sectarianism means no membership).
Comment by Dave Bennett — January 28, 2008 @ 10:09 pm
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Pingback by Regionalism and religiosity | overstated — January 28, 2008 @ 11:53 pm
@45: “Other” is only “Other Christian”: The explanation of what it covers may be seen off the East coast. Also, the title of the image itself is “Leading Church Bodies, 2000″.
Comment by Lurker — January 29, 2008 @ 12:26 am
@Jersey: I don’t know which county in Washington you’re looking at, but I saw a similar map about 7 or 8 years ago where Grant County showed a Mormon majority. (That’s where I am.) The influx of Hispanics has shifted that balance to Catholic since then.
Comment by Joel — January 29, 2008 @ 1:01 am
[...] strange maps 29Jan08 this one had me saying, “really?“ [...]
Pingback by strange maps « medium green — January 29, 2008 @ 1:06 am
As commnet 48 specifies that those counties that are Christian are “non-denominational” specifically in the central Indiana counties one would find the Church of God(Anderson) probably depicted the most.
I was privileged to graduate from Warner Pacific College, in Portland, and I got to know that (non-)denomination fairly well. Although we used to refer to it tongue-in-cheek as the Church of the Holy Hoosier.
Comment by Joel — January 29, 2008 @ 5:06 am
Your site never disappoints!
Once again, we’re giving you your due respect:
http://www.memeticians.com
Have good mapping, all the best!
tjc
Comment by Timothy J. Carroll — January 29, 2008 @ 8:52 am
[...] all the way back to the beginning to read every post. Here’s a small sample: a fascinating religious map of the US, shaded according to which denominations command majorities in each county. Send this article [...]
Pingback by Strange Maps : Global Dashboard — January 29, 2008 @ 12:31 pm
[...] Which Church? Tags: No Tags [...]
Pingback by Ochblog » Blog Archive » Which Church? — January 29, 2008 @ 7:31 pm
[...] Macht inne hält, resp. am meisten Anhänger für sich beanspruchen darf ~ 237 – Regionalism and Religiosity Tuesday, January 29, 2008 | at 9:16 [...]
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Now I know what they mean by the Bible Belt….scary
Where they burn all those nasty Beatles records and raise their kids to wear pointy white hoods…
Comment by kevmoore — January 30, 2008 @ 5:37 pm
Re the counties labeled “Christian”: It seems pretty clear that they are referring to Restoration movement churches. Another map from the same source at http://www.valpo.edu/geomet/pics/geo200/religion/christian.gif
shows the concentration of “Christian” churches and explains “County percentages based on the total number of adherents reported by Restoration Movement church bodies, including the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Christian Churches and Churches of Christ . . .”
Comment by Mark — January 30, 2008 @ 8:25 pm
Better yet:
Check out the web page at http://www.valpo.edu/geomet/geo/courses/geo200/religion.html. Shows everything except athiests and Scientologiest. They even have a map for listing how much of a location “believes” in something.
Comment by Don Hargraves — January 31, 2008 @ 5:29 am
For Geoff and all other non-religious people: There is another map by Glenmary of the percentage of not affiliated people: http://www.glenmary.org/GRC/Maps_2007/Unclaimed.pdf
It also somewhat undermines the significance of this map.
Comment by Jann — January 31, 2008 @ 1:19 pm
@63: That link is a 404…
Comment by Lurker — January 31, 2008 @ 3:40 pm
With the election process in process right now this map makes for some interesting reading.
Comment by cyclepromo — January 31, 2008 @ 4:23 pm
@65–just edit the link to remove the extraneous “.” and it will work just fine.
Comment by Vicki Solomon — January 31, 2008 @ 11:03 pm
And here’s another pages filled with interesting maps along the lines of this:
http://www.glenmary.org/grc/RCMS_2000/maps.htm
There’s even a mirror-image map of the unaffiliated map talked about (and linked to) in comment #64.
Comment by Don Hargraves — January 31, 2008 @ 11:38 pm
[...] the Blogosphere Filed under: In the Blogosphere — trevinwax @ 3:21 am Check out this interesting map to see what religions dominate what regions in the United [...]
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@ Geoff, IOT, Kyle –
Apparently, “None” may mean “There is one church, it is non-denominational, so no data here is available.”
One can read about Loving County on the web. I called up a search for churches by distance, and the nearest ones listed were in Pecos, in the “Catholic” Reeves County, TX, to the south. (I did not find a reference to the non-denominational church in the county itself).
The stuff I found did not describe the county as godless or really religious, either way.
What I did see is that everyone travels the 16 or 20 miles or so out of the county to do their shopping, off to the south and east. It may be that is how people go to church, too.
Did you notice that the county is right on the the border of the Catholic and Baptist regions? The nearby city Pecos is at the border, too, and has a good mix of Baptist/Catholic and others.
Comment by Tom the Alien Cat — February 2, 2008 @ 5:14 pm
Quite puzzling finally is the denomination labelling itself as Christian, dominating in central Illinois and Indiana. I thought they all were. Christian, that is…
Well, Jesus purportedly said that you would know his followers by these signs:
“And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.”
Maybe these are the people who drink Drano, as Jesus commanded.
Comment by blah — February 2, 2008 @ 6:19 pm
Maybe these are the people who drink Drano, as Jesus commanded.
You’re being facetious, but I believe that there are churches that do that in Appalachia. The same ones that pass around snakes are reputed to drink poison as well.
Comment by Joel — February 6, 2008 @ 1:32 am
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[...] the Mormons, the Baptists, the Jews, and everyone else. Fascinating map of religion in the [...]
Pingback by Bob Hayes » Blog Archive » Where The Catholics Are… — February 7, 2008 @ 3:24 pm
Re: comment 51 response to @45, my prior comment: I saw the right-hand legend, and that is when I realized that the “Other” group comprised only Christian churchs, many of which have far fewer numbers than the numbers of Muslims and Jews in this country. My point is that the map should be titled “Regionalism and Christianity,” not “…Religiosity.” (BTW, I grew up in one those “other” churches but I am not religious anymore, so I have no particular axe to grind.)
Comment by Michael J — February 7, 2008 @ 9:49 pm
Re: comment #47: I am pretty ignorant about most religions. Do Catholics not consider non-Christians to be eligible for conversion?
Comment by Michael J — February 7, 2008 @ 9:50 pm
[...] The cartographer’s view of American religion. [...]
Pingback by You Are Here. Friday Night Is There. | Popehat — February 8, 2008 @ 2:55 pm
“Cuius Regio, Eius Religio” meant that you were forced to convert to the religion of the local feudal ruler, actually. Also, it didn’t really end religious warfare.
Interesting map, anyway.
Comment by frostburg — February 10, 2008 @ 12:21 pm
[...] out this map. It show that youre religion has more to do with where you grue up than any [...]
Pingback by Regionalism and Religiosity « Lone Wolfs Den — February 10, 2008 @ 7:25 pm
[...] clipped from strangemaps.wordpress.com [...]
Pingback by In His House There Are Many McMansions | faithtard — February 11, 2008 @ 2:34 am
[...] It’s pretty much a power struggle between the Baptists (red) and the Catholics (blue). You can also see how the Mormons (brown) have spread out from Utah. LINK [...]
Pingback by Ultimate Stupidity » Blog Archive » Religion Map — February 12, 2008 @ 10:23 pm
I’ve just discovered this site this week and I’ve enjoyed looking through the whole archive, but this one is particularly interesting to me.
This map shows the rural areas well, but there’s no detail of the cities. But it’s far better than you could have here in Australia, where well over half the population live in the five big cities.
I’ve studied the census stats a lot, including religion: in my state (South Australia) the figures are 60% Christian (inc 20% Catholic, 14% Anglican), 24% No Religion, 12% Not Stated, 4% other religions. Other states have more Catholic and less No-Rel.
This stated religion usually correlates closely with ancestry: British (the majority) -> Anglican, Uniting and No-Rel, Irish and Italian -> Catholic, Greek -> Orthodox, Vietnamese -> Buddhist, Indian -> Hindu, Indonesian & Middle Eastern -> Muslim.
In census years the churches attempt a head-count, and weekly church attendance is around 8%. Among the Anglicans, the attendance figure is only 4.5% of the census figure. Using the data from the church survey and the denominational stats from the census, it is possible to estimate church attendance for any region.
The main feature is that inner city areas are more secular, with outer suburbs and rural areas being more strongly Christian. I imagine the US would have the same sort of pattern.
Comment by Eric — February 13, 2008 @ 9:58 am
I (think) I located the original data for this map, and have created my own version. There were over 600 religion/church names (in 600+ separate variables) in the data file, so I had to do quite a bit of maniuplaiton & grouping of the data to get my map (almost) exactly like the original.
The one advantage of my SAS/Graph map is that you can hover your mouse over the counties, and see the county name & the numeric value! :)
http://robslink.com/SAS/democd31/church.htm
For those interested, here’s more info about how I manipulated & grouped the data, and the exact SAS code I used to created the map.
http://robslink.com/SAS/democd31/church_info.htm
Comment by Robert — February 13, 2008 @ 9:46 pm
[...] map has been around a while, but it just showed up over at Strange Maps. I suppose, on the one hand, it doesn’t really show us anything new. But it also provides us [...]
Pingback by Seven whole days » The palette of Christianity in America — February 14, 2008 @ 9:02 pm
Anyone notice how the mormons have influence beyond the borders of Utah to cover an area that is an approxamation of their originally planned pseudo-nation of Deseret?
Comment by Nudge — February 17, 2008 @ 9:34 pm
[...] and Religiosity Posted on February 20, 2008 by Lance This is a map found over at StrangeMaps, a site dedicated to, well, strange maps. Below I included their explanation/analysis of the map [...]
Pingback by Regionalism and Religiosity « The Political Inquirer — February 20, 2008 @ 4:20 pm
[...] 237 – Regionalism and Religiosity « Strange Maps offers an interesting glimpse of Religious America. (Strange Maps is NOT a religious site but a fascinating blog-collection of all sorts of fun maps, some real and some imaginary.) This particular map was developed by calculating the (self-reporting?) number of adherents in each Christian/Christian-based religious body of each county in the country, and then showing which religious body had predominance among adherents compared to the total population of the county. Anyway, the “Bible Belt” is CLEARLY visible. On weird part is that the map marks out Catholic, Baptist, Mormon, and so so…. and then there’s another group marked “Christian”. They all claim to be Christian, so I’m guessing the “Christian” designation is a collective term to indicate adherents of churches not large enough for their own label….? I dunno. [...]
Pingback by MY LIFE » Blog Archive » Cool Map: Regionalism and Religiosity — February 25, 2008 @ 11:58 am
It seems to me that the “Christian” religion , like politics has missed the point. It is to serve God and People, not seperate them.
When are you people going to read your own book and wake up!???
Comment by Cash Man — February 26, 2008 @ 3:48 pm
While interesting, the winner take all aspect does mislead a bit (if the largest church is 25% and all the others split the remaining 75%, then the 25% church is made to look dominant).
Sadly, the map would look different if the C&E Christians were counted separately. C&E Christian’s only attend church on Christmas and Easter.
Comment by Anon E Mous — February 26, 2008 @ 4:43 pm
[...] find this map of religious majorities in America very interesting. Anyone know of a Canadian version? [via Richard [...]
Pingback by Skirl | Dan Dickinson » Blog Archive » A confederacy of dunces — March 1, 2008 @ 4:56 pm
[...] Macht inne hält, resp. am meisten Anhänger für sich beanspruchen darf ~ 237 – Regionalism and Religiosity « Bei den Raketenbauern zu Besuch [...]
Pingback by DER MISANTHROP » Blog Archiv » Religionsstatistiken — March 18, 2008 @ 8:33 pm
I live in edgar co IL. (east central Il the one under the long one) and attend the largest restoration movement church in the county. (we are yellow on the map)The county’s population is about 20,000 and restoration churches in the county probably average 1000 in attendance weekly with membership being a lot higher. Maybe this makes things clearer. i.e. 1/20 is a pluarlty if everyone attends church.
And someone said something about Methodists being number 2 a lot. Well they certainly are here right behind us Christians.
Comment by Werd Allen — April 9, 2008 @ 3:36 am
As an American whose father was once a Methodist minister, I’ve had an interest in religion in America. So I’ve seen maps similar to this before. (The 1990 version is available in the main branch of my county library.)
Separate religious groups do these surveys because the government cannot, due to the US’s official freedom of religion. The lack of an official state church has probably helped preserve and strengthen American’s religosity, compared to the traditionally monolithic European countries. Indeed, many Americans came here to fell religious persecution elsewhere. The Amish are an excellent example of this.
Brief explanations of some of the leading demonination mentioned by numbers:
- Adventist: Also known as “Seventh-Day Adventist” or, less often “Millerites” after founder Samuel Miller. Best known for holding services on Saturdays, and emphasis on physical health (members are not allowed to eat meat). One of the more aggressive denominations in terms of converting overseas.
- Anglican: The US branch of the “Church of England”, usually called “Episcopalian” here. Started as a separate branch following the Revolutionary War, and authorized by the Scottish branch in the 1780’s.
- Bretheren: A movement similar to the Methodist or Holiness churches, started in Germany.
- Friends: The “Society of Friends”, more commonly called the “Quakers”. Began in 17th-century England, it emphasized equality of believers and often includes services without leaders, where people only speak “when the spirit moves them”. Most early Friends/ Quakers came to Pennsylvania; their leading Penns were members.
- Orthodox: Basically the “Eastern Orthodox” churches. Many came to the US from Eastern Europe during the period of heavy immigration between the Civil War and World War I; also some in Alaska, which was a Russian colony before being purchased by the US.
- Pentecostal: An early 20th-century movement, that emphasizes holy living and “speaking in tongues”. Began in Los Angeles, and has since spread across the USA and rest of the world.
- Presbyterian: The Scottish version of Calvinism (Reformed is a branch, as well).
- United Church of Christ: Spriitual descendant (after several mergers) of the Congregational church, which was started by the famed Pilgrims in New England during the 1620’s.
A similar map made in 1800 would have shown Congregationists dominant in New England and upstate New York, with Presbyterians and Episcopalians ahead elsewhere. In 1850, it would have included a lot more Methodist counties, as well as more Baptists up north.
It should be noted that most American counties are rural, with population totals in the low thousands. Most people leave in a few urban-suburban conglomerations in many states.
Comment by Darrel Jones — April 11, 2008 @ 10:17 pm
[...] This is an interesting map that I found on marko’s blog. The original is here. [...]
Pingback by iBlog | Map Of U.S. with Dominant Denominations… — April 18, 2008 @ 9:04 pm
what bothers me is that there’s a different category for “Baptist” and “Christian”… odd.
Comment by ilovevirginiacash — April 27, 2008 @ 7:19 am
[...] + Check out this map, which shows the prevalence of various religions in regions, graphically showing the dominant [...]
Pingback by Monday Meanderings, 04/27/08 « Ponder Anew — April 28, 2008 @ 3:44 pm
[...] Item five. A blog called Strange Maps is getting some huge numbers of hits and if you go there you will know why. It is unique, interesting, humorous and educational all at the same time. I found it looking for a map on where certain religious groups are biggest. I was trying to prove to myself why they call this area of the country the Bible Belt. Check out this map and you can decide what parts of the country to live in should you want to avoid, say …Baptists or churches all together. Find it here. [...]
Pingback by Monday morning meanderings. Vol.42 « the view from the juniper tree — April 29, 2008 @ 12:03 pm
Funny how the lowest education states all seem to be colored red? Hmm…
Comment by tod s — May 2, 2008 @ 6:47 pm
In US, religion picks you!
Comment by Dr Benway — May 24, 2008 @ 2:19 pm
The red area is very similar to… the Confederate States of America.
Comment by MaGioZal — May 25, 2008 @ 12:20 am
[...] Link: 237 – Regionalism and Religiosity « Strange Maps [...]
Pingback by nathanr|ca » Regionalism and Religiosity Map — June 6, 2008 @ 5:53 am
W/e
Comment by Boob. — June 16, 2008 @ 3:59 am
Strangemaps, you wrote:
“the Baptists, a term that is quite rightly almost synonymous with Southern Baptist (a bit like how Orthodox in Europe equals Eastern Orthodox; as “western orthodoxy” is referred to as Catholicism).”
This is misleading. When people speak of “Southern Baptists,” they are referring to members of the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest single Protestant church in the United States. Many American Baptists, however, belong to other churches than the SBC. It is inaccurate to refer to them as “Southern Baptists.”
Comment by James — June 19, 2008 @ 6:13 am
And yes, as someone noted above, if Protestants are grouped together, they outnumber Catholics in most U.S. counties. The Catholic Church is the largest single denomination in the United States, but it still is a minority faith, with about 25% of the population. Members of Protestant churches, counted collectively, form about 50-55% of the population.
Comment by James — June 19, 2008 @ 6:15 am
Erik (#84)
“The main feature is that inner city areas are more secular, with outer suburbs and rural areas being more strongly Christian. I imagine the US would have the same sort of pattern.”
Not necessarily. Remember that most big cities in the U.S. have non-white majorities, and that blacks and Latinos have very high churchgoing rates.
Comment by Bob — June 19, 2008 @ 6:28 am
A note about some of the spotty counties of Methodism.
When you remove the Catholic Church from the equation and simply look at protestant churches, the methodist foot print changes dramatically.
The image also changes when you count churches. Methodist were known for planting a church at every crossroad in the Midwest. This made a lot of since when you got to church on foot or with a horse and buggy. Perhaps an obsolete model.
The maps at the bottom of this link show a much different picture.
http://www.adherents.com/rel_USA.html#families
Comment by Rob — June 26, 2008 @ 10:11 pm
Probably already mentioned, but it seems important to note that Catholicism seems to dominate most of the major urban areas of the country: New York, Chicago, LA, Boston, Miami, San Francisco, Phoenix, San Diego, Seattle, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Detroit, Omaha, Philadelphia, Las Vegas, St. Louis, Portland – interesting from a sociological point of view.
I would very much like to see non-christian denominations mixed in with this map or have a map of their own.
Comment by Timmy — July 16, 2008 @ 4:22 am
“It would be very hard to rhyme a Latin culture with the Lutheran religion.”
As a Brazilian lutheran myself, I laughed out loud as well after reading this.
FYI: Thousands of Lutheran Germans immigrated to southern Brazil in the XIXth and XXth centuries and their descendents, myself included, form a happy integrated Latin-Brazilian-AND LUTHERAN bunch despite the sunny weather!
Comment by Wilson — July 20, 2008 @ 4:50 am
While Catholics and Baptists may be a plurality in many counties, that’s not the same as being in the majority.
For example, if your county is 30 percent Catholic, 25 percent Lutheran, 20 percent Methodist, 15 percent Christian/Disciples of Christ and 10 percent “other,” it would be blue on this map; but Catholics would be outnumbered 2 to 1 by Protestants.
I once lived in a couple of central Illinois counties that had large populations of Mennonites and Apostolic Christians, a very conservative denomination that seems to fall somewhere in between regular Mennonites and Amish. All those counties are shown as blue (Catholic) on this map, but Catholics were nowhere near being the dominant church in those counties.
Some of the counties shown as plurality Catholic on this map have actual Catholic populations in the 15-20 percent range at best.
Comment by Elaine — September 16, 2008 @ 2:15 am
This is misleading. When people speak of “Southern Baptists,” they are referring to members of the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest single Protestant church in the United States. Many American Baptists, however, belong to other churches than the SBC. It is inaccurate to refer to them as “Southern Baptists.”
Comment by MileAdl — October 24, 2008 @ 10:24 am
Could you post a map that shows which state/county has the LEAST amount of churches… I may want to move there. Thank you.
Comment by Daily Grinder — November 22, 2008 @ 6:22 pm
Google’s Blog alert sent me to this post because of the term “regionalism.” This map should be useful to subscribers of Regional Community Development News, so I will include a link to it in the November 26 issue. It can be found at
http://regional-communities.blogspot.com/ Please visit, check the tools and consider a link. Tom
Comment by Tom Christoffel — November 24, 2008 @ 4:32 am
I disagree with the point made about Catholicism being no different from the different denominations of Protestantism. I can guarantee a Protestant wrote this. I am a Roman Catholic and I couldn’t even think as to what sub group I could belong in, there is no such thing as an Irish Catholic or a French Catholic, thus the name Roman Catholic. Even the word Catholic means all inclusive. I believe the main mistake made by Protestants who don’t understand Catholicism is Catholic orders. Sure there are the Franciscans and Domininicans and Jesuits, but they are orders, no Catholic who is not a member of the clergy would identify themselves as a Jesuit or Dominican Catholic, it’s absurd. Furthermore, if I visit a Baptist church and then attend an Episcopalian church afterwards, I will notice a great difference. I have been to Catholic masses in Ireland, England, Spain, France, Czech Republic, Egypt, Israel, South Africa, the US etc. and I noticed that the only difference is the language, no more.
Comment by Paul — November 28, 2008 @ 1:50 pm
I am proud to be a Baptist and proud to live in North Carolina where we have the biggest congregations. I have only been to baptist and methodist churches. From what I have heard or learned about the other beliefs I am glad that my parents raised me in a Baptist church.
Comment by Megan — January 28, 2009 @ 12:10 am
I really love your map! I have lived in many different regions in the US and am currently studying US religion.
I need to comment on the footnote that says “differences between different wings of the Roman church that are as great as between denominations of Protestantism that have separated over theological differences.”
I just wanted to note that the Catholic Church is united in it’s doctrine and beliefs. The different “wings” are different practices of communities and what they emphasize (i.e. mission work, methods of prayer and meditation etc.) In other words, there are not multiple views on Baptism, the Deity of Christ etc.
Comment by teresa carroll — April 20, 2009 @ 10:19 pm
thank you
Comment by Tony — May 4, 2009 @ 3:30 am
thanks for this map
good
luck
..
Comment by Solomon — May 11, 2009 @ 8:48 am
merci
Comment by aspicco . — May 17, 2009 @ 6:26 am
Vielen Dank
Comment by moon — July 3, 2009 @ 5:02 am
Muchas gracias
Comment by sun — July 4, 2009 @ 7:29 am