A New Regionalization of American Religion

Abstract

Using data from a recent detailed survey of church membership, measures for four important dimensions of religion are developed and used to create a regionalization of American religion. The four measures are Catholics as a percentage of total population, liberal Protestant adherents as a percentage of all Protestants, church members as a percentage of total population, and an index of religious diversity. The statistical regionalization has patterns generally similar to those found on two earlier, largely subjective maps of American religious regions. That the same regions appear under different map compliation strategies reinforces the concept of the religious region. When religious regions are compared with other cultural regionalizations major inconsistencies are found in the western Middle West, in New England, and in the northern Plains.