2010 Religion Census

[BaldEagle1991]

Interesting and great map but I have a few questions:

1. Will the Southern Baptist Convention expand into to South Texas or perhaps into Northern Virginia anytime in the decades to come?

2. Will the LDS make some inroads in Northern Arizona?

3. If Irreligions (Athiests/Agnostics) is really the number one "religious group" that is fast growing, where do you think they'll show up in the map?

[So the Heroes Fall]

Interesting and great map but I have a few questions:

1. Will the Southern Baptist Convention expand into to South Texas or perhaps into Northern Virginia anytime in the decades to come?

2. Will the LDS make some inroads in Northern Arizona?

3. If Irreligions (Athiests/Agnostics) is really the number one "religious group" that is fast growing, where do you think they'll show up in the map?

1. In Northern Virginia they probably had big numbers that got diluted by the northern transplants. I don't see northerners likely to conver to the SBC en masse any time soon, so the exact opposite will likely happen, they'll continue to roll back in the state. Ditto with South Texas, just replace "northerners" with "Hispanics"

2. I don't think Mormon transplants will be much faster than northern retirees and typical Sunbelt movers.

3. The maps don't include them.

[Frodo]

Largest religious group by county:

Wow -look at all that blue.  If you took this map literally, you'd think the United States is predominately Catholic with a noticeably large Southern Baptist, Mormon, Methodist, and Evangelical Lutheran minority pockets...

[So the Heroes Fall]

Largest religious group by county:

Wow -look at all that blue.  If you took this map literally, you'd think the United States is predominately Catholic with a noticeably large Southern Baptist, Mormon, Methodist, and Evangelical Lutheran minority pockets...

It's colored by plurality which can be quite misleading. Some of those blue counties are probably less than 20% Catholic.

[muon2]

Largest religious group by county:

Wow -look at all that blue.  If you took this map literally, you'd think the United States is predominately Catholic with a noticeably large Southern Baptist, Mormon, Methodist, and Evangelical Lutheran minority pockets...

It's colored by plurality which can be quite misleading. Some of those blue counties are probably less than 20% Catholic.

And to Frodo's observation, one should conclude that it is nearly evenly divided between Catholics (1259) and Southern Baptists (1222) based on the number of counties for each.

[Frodo]

Largest religious group by county:

Wow -look at all that blue.  If you took this map literally, you'd think the United States is predominately Catholic with a noticeably large Southern Baptist, Mormon, Methodist, and Evangelical Lutheran minority pockets...

It's colored by plurality which can be quite misleading. Some of those blue counties are probably less than 20% Catholic.

And to Frodo's observation, one should conclude that it is nearly evenly divided between Catholics (1259) and Southern Baptists (1222) based on the number of counties for each.

I was speaking as a casual observer.  But point taken.  Still, it is remarkable just how heavily Catholic this map makes the US look, in comparison with its actual numbers (about a quarter of the population).   

[BaldEagle1991]

Now a much better map would be religious attendance, too bad that's too broad to make into a map, but it would be an interesting look once it's made, if ever.

[Lloyd Bentsen's Ghost]

I think a more useful map might break the counties down by Catholic, Mainline Protestant, Evangelical Protestant, and LDS.

[shua]

The decennial census of religions was released this week. The website shows the participation by county for a number of denominations. There is also a slide show report released to the press.

Adherents as a fraction of the population by county:

The numbers there are pretty low for Hampton Roads. It's certainly not because people here aren't religious. There's a lot of nondenominational or independent churches here  - from big screen latte megachurches to small holy roller street corner operations. And those purple and green areas extend all along the southeast coast and into the central Appalachians.  For a lot of this map, those low numbers reflect a particular type of religious involvement rather than its absence.

[Ethelberth]

The map shows outback episcopalism. The fact that the congressman from the Montana, Wyoming or Eastern Oregon or Alaska tend to be Episcopals.

[Ethelberth]

Comparing the map to this
http://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?action=gallery;sa=view;id=1042

You see that the congressmen are seldom alien to their electorate denomination wise. Interestigly, the methodist middle class is typical for south, but in these county maps it is typical for areas without any charasteristics. American Baptists are very underrepresented and American baptists too. However some dots of local dominance are reflected in the pattern of congressmen and plurality counties (e.g. Lutherans in West Coast).