Jump to Content
welcome to my brain. come, have a seat.

{ Email Connor }

Welcome to the blog of Connor Boyack, a 20-something husband, web designer, Latter-day Saint, constitutionalist, paleocon, classical liberal, preparedness practitioner, budding philanthropist, and master's student of political economy. I'm from Poway, CA but live in Happy Valley.


blog RSS feed

America’s Regional Religions

Posted by Connor on July 11th, 2006

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

I came across an interesting graphic today that shows America’s religions by region, as of six years ago (click to enlarge):

My observations:

  1. I’d like to see this same graph, but have it also reflect activity rates within that religion. So, the updated graph would use color intensity to represent activity rates. The brighter the color is, the higher that religion’s average activity rate is. Based on this article, Catholics have a 28% rate, and Protestants have a 20% rate. I’d imagine we’d see a lot less blue if this reflected actual church-going rates.
  2. That’s a lot of freakin’ red, dude.
  3. What’s with the random isolated Mormon splotches? Southwest Oregon, the northern tip of Idaho, etc.
  4. I had no idea there were that many Lutherans. Why north-central USA?
  5. The northeastern states seems to have an overwhelming majority of (declared) Catholics.
  6. Utah is totally brown. Couldn’t they have picked a better color… say, orange? Or maybe in representation of our state’s staple, green Jello, they could have let us swap colors with the Methodists.

The website where this graph is located also has more graphs worth checking out.

Possibly related posts:

7 comments so far. Care to chime in?

“I had no idea there were that many Lutherans. Why north-central USA? ”

Scandinavian immigrants.

#1 Adam Greenwood on July 12th, 2006

I’d like to see this same graph, but have it also reflect activity rates within that religion. So, the updated graph would use color intensity to represent activity rates. The brighter the color is, the higher that religion’s average activity rate is. Based on this article, Catholics have a 28% rate, and Protestants have a 20% rate. I’d imagine we’d see a lot less blue if this reflected actual church-going rates.

In 2000, the church claimed just over 5 million members. In 2001, only 2.7 million members claimed to be lds. Only half of the 5 “million strong” in the US claim to even be mormons. I believe nationally, activity rate is about 30%, so only about 60% of mormons who claim to be mormon even attend.

#2 the narrator on July 12th, 2006

Yeah, I’ve heard these same numbers. I actually heard that the LDS church has more of a 50% rate, but I don’t know if that’s for the USA or worldwide (which I presume would be lower, given the retention problems I saw in Honduras).

#3 Connor on July 12th, 2006

[...] ref=”http://blog.moregoodfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/church_bodies.jpg”> Source: American’s Regional Religions

Categories: Mormon, Cool Sites, Posted a [...]

#4 More Good Foundation Blog » America’s Religions by Region on July 12th, 2006

US Religeons in 2000

To gratify Connor, I’ve given us the green Jell-O flavor he so desired

*Thanks Brandon for the quick photoshop help.

…

#5 Latter-day Blog on July 18th, 2006

The one that wigged me out the most was Decatur Co, IA (the fifth little square from the west in that state). Turns out, that’s the site of Graceland University, the Community of Christ’s school. Lamoni’s a major centre for them.

As for the isolated splotches, who besides Mormons would settle Boundary Co, ID or middle of nowhere NV? Have you been to Coeur d’Alene?

#6 alea on July 18th, 2006

[...] Fuente: American’s Regional Religions (Religiones Regionales de los Estados Unidos de América) Categories: Mormon, Posted at 10:10 am [...]

#7 More Good Foundation Blog » Religiones de los Estados Unidos de América por Región on September 21st, 2006

Post a comment

Name (required)

Email (required)

URL

what's new

Featuring 609 posts w/ 7,307 comments.

Search the blog
[ Sitemap ]
Recent Comments RSS feed
Most Commented
Recent Posts
Aaaaarchives