Membership in the Catholic church in the US has increased in recent years primarily due to immigration from Latin America. States with large Irish- and Italian-American populations also have significant numbers of Catholics. The map above shows membership per 1000 people for all counties in the US. New Mexico, California and Texas have the highest rates of adherents.
Note: The data were downloaded from the Association of Religion Data Archives, www.TheARDA.com
Continuing our series of maps about religion in the US, today we take a look at membership in Evangelical Protestant churches. The map above shows the rate of adherence per 1,000 people for all counties in the US (click on the map for the full-size version). Darker colors represent a higher rate of adherence. We split the data into five equal ranges: <200, 200-400, 400-600, 600-800, and > 800. The highest adherence rates can be found in the southern states, which are the traditional stronghold of the Evangelical movement.
Note: The data were downloaded from the Association of Religion Data Archives, www.TheARDA.com
We recently came across a study about church membership in the US conducted by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies (ASARB). The study compiled data on the number of congregations and adherents for 236 religious groups in each county of the US. We were curious about what the data would look like displayed on a map, so we created the thematic map shown above (click on it for the larger version). We chose three colors to represent the rate of adherence: the lighter color is for counties where the rate of adherence is less than 333 per 1000 inhabitants. The medium color is for counties with a rate of adherence between 333 and 667, and the darkest color is for counties with rate of adherence greater than 667 per 1000.
Note: The data were downloaded from the Association of Religion Data Archives, www.TheARDA.com