Religious Denomination Maps

[RBH]

Maps taken from ARDA data. I take the data per 1000, then add together the 1000 maps and divide from there. Sorry to the non-religious people, you all won't get counted here. Especially due to the flaws in religious censuses.

Here we go.

Minnesota:



North Dakota:



More states could come soon.

And for all we know, these maps could mirror other maps.

Although for a lot of states, i'm sure one group would have a majority in all the counties.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

It's better for the mainstream churches than I thought, well, at least in North Dakota and Minnesota.

[bullmoose88]

What are you classifying as mainline and evangelical?

[minionofmidas]

It's better for the mainstream churches than I thought, well, at least in North Dakota and Minnesota.

That's because they are North Dakota and Minnesota... bastions of Lutheranism.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

It's better for the mainstream churches than I thought, well, at least in North Dakota and Minnesota.

That's because they are North Dakota and Minnesota... bastions of Lutheranism.

Ah.. Okay then. I hope this doesn't mean I should shield my eyes from the Red once this thread hits the south?

[Padfoot]

Sorry to the non-religious people, you all won't get counted here. Especially due to the flaws in religious censuses.

You do realize that non-religious people are the plurality in four states don't you?  In Idaho, Washington, Oregon, and Wyoming the largest religious denomination is no religion.

[bullmoose88]

No religion? or No Organized Religion?

[minionofmidas]

It's better for the mainstream churches than I thought, well, at least in North Dakota and Minnesota.

That's because they are North Dakota and Minnesota... bastions of Lutheranism.

Ah.. Okay then. I hope this doesn't mean I should shield my eyes from the Red once this thread hits the south?

Long before that.

[RBH]

What are you classifying as mainline and evangelical?

I have no idea what ARDA considers mainline and evangelical.

Whenever I get around to Missouri, i'll probably add a map for the Southern Baptist stats.

[RBH]

Sorry to the non-religious people, you all won't get counted here. Especially due to the flaws in religious censuses.

You do realize that non-religious people are the plurality in four states don't you?  In Idaho, Washington, Oregon, and Wyoming the largest religious denomination is no religion.

Yeah. But there's not a big line between no domination and no religion.

Figuring out how many people are in a religious group is very inprecise, especially since various groups will just count everybody they bapitised.

[minionofmidas]

http://www.thearda.com/mapsReports/reports/US_2000.asp for a list of what denominations were classified as what.

[Alcon]

No religion? or No Organized Religion?

Non-religious.

Those without religion are estimated at 25% in Washington, and growing.  Roman Catholics are 20%.  The next is Lutheran, at 6% (generalised Protestants are at 29%, but that will probably fall below non-religious soon too).

Only 63% of Washingtonians identify as Christian, easily the lowest in the country that I can find.  So far, it's the only state I've found that is below 70%.

And then there's the consideration that a lot of those Christians never go to church and have no idea what their denomination stands for.  In reality, I'd wager that most people in Washington are "non-religious" in the sense that they don't practise their denomination of choice to any real extent.

I personally know very few religious people.  I'd say the vast majority of people at my school do not attend church even occasionally.

[Alcon]

Here is the rank for "most Christian" per the City University of New York survey:

1. Alabama - 92%
1. South Carolina - 92%
3. South Dakota - 91%
4. Louisiana - 90%
4. Nebraska - 90%
6. North Carolina - 88%
7. Mississippi - 86%
7. North Dakota - 86%
9. Georgia - 85%
9. Wisconsin - 85%
11. Virginia - 84%
12. Connecticut - 83%
13. Alaska - 82%
13. Florida - 82%
13. Indiana - 82%
13. Maine - 82%
13. Maryland - 82%
13. Michigan - 82%
13. Montana - 82%
13. Tennessee - 82%
21. Arkansas
21. New Mexico - 81%
21. Rhode Island - 81%
21. Texas - 81%
25. Arizona - 80%
25. Illinois - 80%
25. New Hampshire - 80%
28. Delaware - 79%
28. Idaho - 79%
28. Massachusetts - 79%
28. Pennsylvania - 79%
32. Nevada - 78%
32. Oklahoma - 78%
32. Wyoming - 78%
35. California - 77%
35. Missouri - 77%
37. Kentucky - 76%
37. Minnesota - 76%
39. Colorado - 75%
39. Oregon - 75%
39. Utah - 75%
39. West Virginia - 75%
43. Iowa - 74%
43. Ohio - 74%
43. Vermont - 74%
46. Kansas - 73%
47. District of Columbia - 72%
48. New Jersey - 70%
49. Hawai'i - 68%
49. New York - 68%
51. Washington - 63%

Just for reference...

[RBH]

And here's one of the more clear-cut maps possible.




Fun stats

1960 Presidential election
Catholic Counties: 57% Kennedy, 24% Nixon, 19% Unpledged
Protestant Counties: 38% Nixon, 36% Kennedy, 26% Unpledged

1964
Catholic counties: 51/49 Johnson
Protestant counties: 71/29 Goldwater

Before that..

1952: Eisenhower faired 0.08% better in the Catholic counties
1928: Smith faired 8% better in Catholic counties, and carried 71% in the Protestant counties.

Of course, demographics could have changed since then.

Recent history

2003:
Catholic counties: 52/48 Blanco
Protestant counties: 53/47 Blanco

Although for the purposes of full disclosure, Blanco and Jindal are both Catholic.

But yeah, there's not really any outlier counties in Louisiana. No Protestant enclaves in the South or Catholic enclaves in the North.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Here is the rank for "most Christian" per the City University of New York survey:

<snip>

Just for reference...

Interesting. Do you have figures for people with No Religion?

Btw, England Region numbers from the 2001 Census:

1. North East (80% Christian, 11% NR)
2. North West (78% Christian, 10% NR)
3. South West (74% Christian, 16% NR)
4. Yorks. & Humber (73% Christian, 14% NR)
5. South East (72% Christian, 16% NR)
6. West Midlands (72% Christian, 12% NR)
7. East (72% Christian, 16% NR)
8. East Midlands (72% Christian, 16% NR)
9. London (58% Christian, 15% NR)

[Alcon]

Yep.

No religion by state:

WA - 25%
VT - 22%
CO, OR - 21%
NV, WY - 20%
CA, ID - 19%
NM, NY - 18%
AZ, DE, MT, NH, UT - 17%
IN, MA, ME - 16%
IL, KS, MI, MO, NJ, OH, RI - 15%
MN, OK, WI - 14%
AR, DC, IA, KY, MD, NJ, WV - 13%
CT, FL, GA, PA, VA - 12%
TX - 11%
NC - 10%
LA, NE, TN - 9%
SD - 8%
MS, SC - 7%
AL - 6%
ND - 3%

[nclib]

Minnesota:

Catholic: Bush 16 Kerry 9
Mainline: Bush 42 Kerry 15
Evangelical: Bush 5 Kerry 0

North Dakota:

Catholic: Bush 11 Kerry 3
Mainline: Bush 37 Kerry 1
Evangelical: Bush 1 Kerry 0

So far it looks like Catholic-majority counties are more Democratic than mainline Protestant counties (and of course Evangelical counties).

[RBH]

nclib finds out why I used blue for Catholic counties, red for Evangelical Protestant counties, and purple for mainline counties.

As for Louisiana, the split is

Catholic: 24 Bush, 6 Kerry
Evangelical: 32 Bush, 4 Kerry

2000-
C: 22 Bush, 8 Kerry
E: 30 Bush, 6 Kerry

[Padfoot]

Here's a map generated by Wikipedia using data from the American Religious Identification Survey:


To see more results from this survey go to: http://www.gc.cuny.edu/faculty/research_briefs/aris/key_findings.htm

[nclib]

Evangelical [in LA]: 32 Bush, 4 Kerry

I looked up the 4 Kerry Evangelical counties in LA, and all of them have black-majorities. So far there's not a single white-majority Evangelical county to vote for Kerry.

[RBH]

Minnesota:

More indepth info.

Rock County

ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church of America): 24%
Catholic: 17%
Reformed Church of America: 15%
LCMS: 13%
Presbyterian Church: 11%
United Methodist: 7%
Christian Reformed: 6%
Other: 7%

ELCA is down as mainline and LCMS (Lutheran Church/Missouri Synod) as evangelical. Go figure.

Amongst the Evangelical counties

Pipestone: LCMS and Christian Reformed Church are both big there.

McLeod: LCMS

Sibley: LCMS and Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod

Traverse: LCMS

Wadena: LCMS

[nclib]

Apparently the ELCA (actually BRTD's church) despite the name, is way more liberal than the LCMS.

[RBH]

The Christian Reformed Church in North America isn't quite the same as the Reformed Church in America.

They're both Dutch and Calvinist.

The CRC/NA gave us Vern Ehlers. The RCA gave us Pete Hoekstra.

[RBH]

Iowa:



2004
Evangelical: 3 Bush, 1 Kerry
Mainline: 58 Bush, 22 Kerry
Catholic: 5 Bush, 9 Kerry
Split Mainline/Catholic: 1 Bush

The top groups

Mainline: ELCA, United Methodist, Presbyterian, Disciples of Christ, UCC, RCA
Evangelical: LCMS, Assemblies of God

Evangelical Counties

Benton: LCMS
Crawford: LCMS
Decatur: Community of Christ (formerly RLDS)
Iowa: LCMS

[RBH]

Decatur: Community of Christ (formerly RLDS)

Decatur has 113 CoCers per 1000 people. Harrison County has 32 CoCers per 1000. That's a bit of a drop off.

Iowa is 2nd in the nation for Community of Christ members. Missouri is first. Utah is 37th.

Iowa is 2nd in the nation for members of the Christian Reformed Church of North America. Michigan is 1st, Minnesota is 5th.

Iowa is 1st for Reformed Church in America members too.

Other Iowa notes.

Tama and Howard Counties have over 10% Czechs

Shelby and Cass have over 10% Danes. Audabon County has 32.9% Danes.

Iowa has 7 counties with over 10% Dutch. Including the Permanently Republican Sioux County.

And they have 19 counties with over 10% Norwegians

Montgomery County is 13% Swedish.

Iowa, over 57 varieties of Western European! (ok, the better nickname is "More Diverse than You'd expect")