If you’re like most people, you’d probably guess that Utah has a higher percentage of LDS people than any other state. And you’d be right.
But members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints live all over the world and across the United States. Here are the top 10 states with the highest populations of Mormons (as a percentage of the overall population). (All numbers based on numbers from the Pew Research Center and Mormon Newsroom.)
1. Utah — 55 percent
Total Church Membership: 2,000,554
Missions: 9 (There are now 10 missions in Utah with the addition of the Orem Utah Mission.)
Congregations: 4,971
Temples: 16 dedicated, 1 under construction
2. Idaho — 19 percent
Total Church Membership: 430,757
Missions: 4
Congregations: 1,117
Temples: 4
3. Wyoming — 9 percent
Total Church Membership: 67,199
Missions: 1 (As of January 2015)
Congregations: 157
Temples: 0 dedicated, 1 under construction
4. Arizona — 5 percent
Total Church Membership:416,192
Missions: 6
Congregations: 844
Temples: 5
5. Alaska — 5 percent
Total Church Membership: 33,375
Missions: 1
Congregations: 86
Temples: 1
6. Nevada — 4 percent
Total Church Membership: 182,072
Missions: 3
Congregations: 330
Temples: 2
7. Oregon — 4 percent
Total Church Membership: 153,226
Missions: 3
Congregations: 306
Temples: 2
8. Montana — 4 percent
Total Church Membership: 48,968
Missions: 1
Congregations: 123
Temples: 1
9. Hawaii — 3 percent
Total Church Membership: 73,660
Missions: 1
Congregations: 138
Temples: 2
10. Washington — 3 percent
Total Church Membership: 282,356
Missions: 7
Congregations: 549
Temples: 3
- Colorado; Washington, D.C.; Maine; New Mexico; Virginia and West Virginia all claim 2 percent of their total populations as LDS. All other U.S. states have LDS populations of less than 2 percent.
“…with the edition of the Orem Utah Mission” Mmm, I think it’s an addition rather than an ediditon. 🙂
I caught that, also.
I have lived in the South and California most all of my life and worked in Hawaii and the Caribbean. The Mormon people have been some of my best friends and are my neighbors and co-workers. They want to serve their country (military) and their God, fun at sports, fun to can food with and interesting to go to church with. I don’t care where they live…I love them. The more, the merrier.
thank you for this, these states are ones to AVOID for me. The mormons in my experience are the most corrupt , crooked , lying underhanded evil and wicked people in the country. Taking over government offices and only taking care of other mormons. the women are wicked to , voting , jury pool with side with a mormon and not what is right ! I have found medical boards , nursing boards full of mormons 99% cult members and God pity the one in front of them who is not mormon. They make me sick to even read these comments what “good people ” they are . Wait until they turn on YOU
Mormons are cool, in small numbers. You get a large group of them together though and they all start to “out righteous” each other and it get vicious fast!
That is low. What makes Mormons so evil. What did they do to you? They are people just like the rest of us with beliefs we should respect. What is they were saying this about what you believe. Now not all of them are so bright but that doesn’t mean all of them are bad either. They help this earth and so does everyone else. They are not evil or wicked.
That’s really too bad you have such a poor opinion of Latter Day Saints. Though we are certainly not perfect and just like any other religion, we have those who certainly don’t represent the following of our Savior to how He intended. I don’t know what it was that has made you so bitter about LDS people, but I’m truly sorry you have this opinion. As me and my family and the LDS people I associate with, we strive to be good examples and treat all people we meet (no matter their religious affiliation) with love and respect. It’s the only way I wish to live and the only way my children will be taught to live. I do hope you meet the kind of LDS people I describe, so that you know, for the most part, this is the type of people we actually are.
WHAT?
*addition of Orem mission
Although Mormons in California represent a small percentage of the state’s total population, there are more Mormons living in California than in any other state except Utah.
The title to your article should be changed. I totally agree with the previous comment. Other than Utah, California has the largest number of LDS members, missions, stakes, and wards. Other than Utah it also produces the largest amount of financial contributions in the form of tithes and offerings than any other state.
That would follow since there are more members there.
The percentages on several states needs to be corrected. California, not listed in the 2% category, has at least 2% of its population as members. The following states which were listed in the 2% category should not have been listed as such, because they each have no more than 1% of their populations as members: Maine, Virginia, and West Virginia, plus, Washington, D.C., which has less than one-half of one percent of its population as members. All these figures are from the Deseret News Church Almanac.
According to official LDS figures there are 773,762 Mormons in California (1/8/17). On 1/8/17, the U.S. Census Bureau lists California’s estimated population as 39,250,017.
773,762 ÷ 39,250,017 = 1.97%
Yes that’s right, that is what the article says
Dare we go by ACTIVE members only when “competing” ? I am not reserving JUST for recommend carrying members..but those who are simply ACTIVE compared to the inactive members? The speculation is that 1/3 of the total membership of the Church is active. Is that confidential or privileged information? After all we SHOULD know whether one of the missions of the Church is being adhered to through our retention efforts. This is NOT an opportunity to take a dig at the Church, it IS an evaluation of our overall retention efforts.We also need a far more elaborate study on home teaching and visiting teaching, more often than not we hear that the job isn’t getting done, but the metrics never come back nor do the results or consequences of the job not getting done. Yes, we know the results are not necessarily pretty or positive, but that TOO can/SHOULD be a motivator to turn things around. It is GOOD to consider the positives of every baptism and my goal is NOT to defeat or dissuade anyone from joining, but as a life long member, we deserve to get the vegetables (bad news) as well as dessert (good news) in order to push ourselves to get the work done.
he Utah numbers are extremely wrong, for a membership of two million at 55% to be true the population of Utah would have to be over 4,500,000, the entire state of Utah is just over 3,500,000, and 3,000,000 of them live in greater salt lake(the Wasatch front) where Mormonism has gone from 75% in 2000, to 55% in 2017, so clearly Mormonism is falling apart in salt lake and there just counting the entire population to make the church look bigger. It was only a matter of time before Mormonism began to fail in salt lake.
There are more Mormons in California than in any other state except Utah. The title of this article should not be “most Mormons,” but “highest percentage of Mormons” or “highest number per capita” or something like that.
California has 157 stakes, 19 missions (twice as many as Utah, and more than any other state), and 7 temples (more than anywhere except Utah).
Change the stats to totals instead of % — would be interesting to see. Arizona for example has 416k members which is only 5% of a bigger population yet it blows Wyoming out of the water. How many total Mormons are in CA? Would be interesting to see.
Ha ha Bret B So true! Considering the fact that Wyoming is the least populated state in the nation, there are states that have less than 2% and could still have more mormons! I am from Wyoming. My sister and most of her married kids/grandkids live in Mesa. I lived all of my middle school and high school years in Northern AZ.
I agree that it would be interesting to see totals as well as percentages. I think it would also be interesting to see population density (Mormons per square mile or something like that). I suspect all of these measures have something to do with how many temples are built–along with other factors like temple activity and other measures of faithfulness. Other factors might include current rate of growth and potential for future growth.
According to the data in the article, Arizona is third after Idaho, not Wyoming.
I don’t think these numbers are accurate. Texas has more than 300,000 thousand members and it is not even listed. Just be careful.The following data is from LDS.org 2015 church
membership by state. Texas : 334,772 Total Church Membership 8 Missions 635 Congregations 4 Temples, 111 Family History Centers.
@Mario Jane – that’s 335K out of 27.7M Texans, for a 1.2 percent total. Since it’s ranked by %, Texas is still below the cut.
Why has this become a competition in membership? As a convert I believe we should be all working harder to spread the Gospel and bring in the other 98% or less. To let them see what happiness and peace we feel with the Spirit always with us. And the guidance we receive daily from the Scriptures and our General and Local Authorities.
Yeah… I agree Sharon…
the growth of the Church…the spreading of good news…Gospel…
caring for families…attend the Temple…
is what we members should concentrating on…there is enough contention in the world w/o members contending over bigger & more…
Merry Christmas & Blessed New Year…
Hi Everyone;
You can always look up current church statistics on lds.org
Currently in California there are 778,629 members, 19 Missions, 1,367 congregations, 7 Temples and 183 Family History Centers.
So California does have higher numbers but we also have a higher population than any of the other States named.Percentages. In the top 10 most populated cities in the U.S. 3 of them are in California. Los Angeles, San Diego and San Jose in that order.
More statistices for everyone!
The point is the church membership is growing!
I think the reason why, at least for me, is because it does not seem fair that Utah tops every list when it comes to members of the Church, and in many cases, including this one, the only list shown is one that benefits those in Utah and is written by someone in Utah. It does not show any of the other list which put others on top and Utah on the bottom. And those in Utah are also the ones who receive the most visits from General Authorities, the most in church funds, the most temples, and so on. If you live in Utah, it almost seems like the Church leaders like you better. Before the introduction of smaller temples, California and Utah had the same number of temples. Now that the church has started building smaller temples, the church has more than doubled temple construction in Utah, and has nearly built more of them in Utah than they have anywhere else, even though church attendance and membership there has not grown to match.
There places in the world where members have to travel a day and a half in large numbers and spend there life savings to go to the temple, and the Church does nothing. But if you live in Utah and cannot get into the session you want and have to wait 30 minutes, then the Church builds you six more temples within a one hour drive. Tell me how that does not show favoritism? I know that the Utah temples are busy, but all the members there have to do is wait a little longer to get into the temple, they don’t have to spend there life savings and travel a total of 3 days to do it. That is the problem that many people have.
Do not understand why you are all fighting about how many are where when you should be out teaching people about the gospel
I don’t know why you are so concerned about Church members in Utah and where you get your information about Church leaders visiting more often! I live in Utah on the Wasatch Front. In the past 12 years we have had a “general authority” attend a stake conference 2 times- the Presiding Bishop and an area Seventy when the stake presidency was changed. My daughter lives in California and they have an apostle visit their stake conferences often.
As far as the number of temples in Utah…Utah members are temple attenders. The temples we have are over crowded on Saturdays and on week night evenings. I have heard (from instructors at Family History seminars) that 80% of the temple work that is performed is done in the temples of Utah. It stands to reason the Church would build temples where the demand is high. Because I live in the midst of numerous temples, I feel it an obligation to attend often, as well as a blessing.
It is easy to “look over the fence” and think Utah members have an advantage, and I think we do, but it is only because of our high percentage of faithful members. Don’t complain, just be happy you have the Gospel in your life and be the best latter-day saint you can be where you live.
The info about the author states that she writes about Utah but lives in Dallas.
Do you want the church to build temples that only get used ten percent of the time and don’t have enough workers to actually staff it? That’s why some people have to travels day and people in UT get the temples. The lords going to put them where they get used. If you don’t like it do something about it. I’m not in UT and see no issue with the way the Lord deems fit to build His houses.
Stating there is a temple in Wyoming is a bit misleading right now. It is still under construction and not an operating temple as of yet.
It says it’s under construction
What would it be in raw numbers? I believe California would be 4th or 5th based on raw numbers, but taken as a percentage of 30 million it would clearly be less than 2%.
Change the title of this article. Not accurate.
Please clean up the typos.
Charlotte. I am from the midwest and have to say to Amen ! What a blessing to have so many temples and feel the responsibility to attend them. For us it takes one to two days to get to a temple because of distance. I don’t understand the squabbling that happens between members when there is information given about the church . Just be worthy to go to the Temple closest to you and be there as much as you can. If you need to have more information to vary this report then go to lds.org and find out what you need to know for yourself and not use it for a case for contention.
I would be very happy to see them head back to N Y where they started from.!
Sick of the cult running the government in AZ.
never vote for anyone who is mormon again,
they love to stick together and go against anyone who is not part of this sinister “religion”
There is nothing “sinister” about it. I’m sorry for your unhappiness, but the LDS Church is not a “cult” and it does not “run the government” in Arizona. There is obviously no way that it could, with the LDS population constituting a small minority. Last I looked, John McCain and Gov. Brewer were both very far from being Mormons. Finally, considering that the Mormons were among the first white settlers of Arizona, who made the desert of Mesa, Safford, Thatcher, St. David and other communities “blossom as the rose,” and given that very few if any of the current LDS population in Arizona were born in New York, maybe it would be easier for you to move to a place with few Mormons (like New York) rather than uproot 416,000 people.
Barry, it is depressing if an increasing number of people find it necessary to follow or join with any cult or way of thinking that is fundamentally based on either lunacy, stupidity or hypocrisy. And this includes all religions… Christianity, Islam, Judaism you name it. Have you ever actually read the bible? I wonder because I have and I have never encountered a “Christian” (of any type) who wasn’t either psychotic, hypocritical or just plain dumb. To illustrate what I mean, take Numbers 31, verses 14 through 18 in the Bible where after victory on the battlefield Moses orders his troops to kill all the boy babies and their mothers and any woman who is not a virgin and to take all the young women and girls for themselves. Now, when confronted with this clear and obvious case of “God”-approved murder and child sexual enslavement the Christian hypocrite (painful to watch) tries to talk his way out, either by (incredibly) still maintaining that his “God is lov
…”love” or some other evasive response or simply “God can’t be understood”. Next the Christian who is a psychopath reads the Bible…finds nothing wrong with child-rape and baby-killing and crimes against humanity and says “What’s the problem?”. Lastly, the idiot or ignorant Christian says “I haven’t read that passage in the Bible.” What will you say, Barry? How will you explain the fundamental problems of your religion? Hypocrite, idiot or psychopath?
A “cult” is any religion that right wing Protestants don’t like.
Cult of what? Visiting the sick, helping strangers in need? Peacemakers?
I like any article about Church facts and figures, but whoever figured out the percentages must have got the formula wrong. It understates the percentages on every state. For example, there are about 2 million Mormons in Utah, which has a total population of just under 3 million. That would make the percentage right around 67 percent, rather than 55 percent. Idaho should be close to 30 percent, and Wyoming should be around 11 or 12 percent. All the other states had similarly lower percentages than they should have been.
I don’t care where you live; I’m just happy the church is growing in membership. I am proud of all the Mormon leaders in businesses everywhere. I am also proud of the youth who seem to be much stronger than the members of my age. Any state should be delighted to see the Mormon Church flourish within its boundaries.
I agree Kent I love that the church is growing. Think of it, it all started forever ago. Joseph Smith along time ago called some people in the church and said that soon this church will be all around the world. He was thinking of this time. 🙂
I’m gonna have to disagree, mormons are a cult…and…..your no more Christian than a buddast or a hindu, you don’t believe in the trinity, you don’t believe the bible, oh ya , you pick and choose what pieces you want to morph into your cult…you don’t believe that Jesus died for our sins….let me say it clearly. ….MORMONS ARE NOT CHRISTIANS….we believe in ONE GOD….you believe you will be a God….CULT !!!!!
@Christian. I admire your boldness. To speak as a Mormon and to something I think we can both agree on. I’ve studied the Bible both old and new testaments many times along with the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants. While the methods God uses to wake up and bring the people to repentance has changed throughout time, the message has always been the same. Jesus paid 100% for our sins, so we could learn to love as He does, and repent (which is not a reimbursement to Him for his suffering) when we choose not to love. His atonement makes it possible to return and live with God the Father and Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Love is the whole purpose of the gospel; to show us and allow us to choose to love as Jesus showed us how to love. They will never stop being God, even as we become more like them because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ which affords us the ability to increase in love.
You forgot about California. It accounts for 20.2 percent of mormons with a whopping 773 thousand members.
California as well. What other?
California has more LDS members than any other state except Utah.
https://crcc.usc.edu/california-religious-demographics/
I have gotten a real kick out of the rivalry between Utah and California. Since California LDS members brought up the rivalry (amount of LDS members in either state whether percentage or quantity) first and put Utah LDS members on defensive the Pride Award goes to California. Congrats to California! :o) By the way, I’m neutral since I live in Idaho.
If you love the temples, it is tough to live so far. For 15y, my family and I listened intently at the Saturday General Conference session, anticipating the announcement of a temple in the Panhandle of Florida, preferably Pensacola. When the announcement wasn’t made, we would be so disappointed to think we were still among the 15% of the Church population more than 3hours from a temple. We were actually 4:15min at a fast drive. Then we moved to Utah. We live 2 blocks from a temple and love it. We now realize why Utah keeps announcing more temples, they are packed and not just on evenings and weekends. And that is every temple we have been to, all but the Vernal (too far). In fact, on a Saturday morning women would wait 90min to get three names to do initiatory. I am an ordinance worker and know this first hand. For 15y living in the U.S. Southeast, my husband and I traveled extensively and attended every temple and usually were participating in an endowment with ourselves and the temple workers. This includes: Baton Rouge, Birmingham, Orlando, Atlanta, St. Louis, Columbia SC, North Carolina, Memphis, D.C., Albuquerque.
I live in southeastern Idaho which is directly north of Utah. This area of Idaho is almost as Mormon as Utah averaging around 50% of the population, maybe even a bit more. Although I’m not Mormon, 3/4 of my family is. I don’t mind living here at all in fact I feel blessed to be. People are very friendly and always willing to help a neighbor. It makes for a great place to live. Very low crime and safe feeling. There is one mistake made in the statistics part above. It says Idaho has 430,757 Mormons which is 19% of the population. The problem is Idaho’s population is right around 1.6 million. If there is 430,757 Mormons in idaho, that is about 27% of the population which is the correct percentage. I’ve always heard claims depending on who is speaking that Idaho is 25-30% Mormon. I believe 27% is a more accurate number.
These numbers are inaccurate. This is something that always bothered me when I was Mormon – because it seems Mormons tend to lie about their actual numbers a lot… I guess it makes them feel like their religion is more powerful than it actually is.
Let me explain a bit: I grew up in an area of North Carolina that is populated mainly by Christians, with a very small number of Mormons around. I think when I was born (to Mormon parents), there were roughly 50 members in the ward. By the time I left at age 16, there were 200 – more than half of them had moved there from Utah, and the rest were children or family of the original 50 members. Converts were RARE. I used to joke that Utah was sending Mormons to populate in areas with low concentrations of Mormons to make their “church” look larger to the locals…
I’ve seen claims that there are 16 million Mormons worldwide, however, that number seems to include deceased, inactive, and non-believing people (and I often wonder if they’re counting people from their “baptisms” for the dead). That being said, the number of ACTIVE, believing Mormons is likely closer to 4 million worldwide — For example, last fall I saw a Mormon membership report for a specific area in Europe where they claimed about 30,000 members, but reviews of attendance in the area over a period of months showed a number of about 3,000 active members. That number-fudging pattern is repeated everywhere, it seems.
Take me for example, I left Mormonism, became an atheist (something that happens to most Mormonism apostates as a result of “the one true church” brainwashing), then I later became a Christian – and through all of that, I could not believe LESS in Mormonism. But until I completed the tedious task of having my name removed from their records last year, I – an anti-Mormon-Jesus-Loving-Christian – was counted as a Mormon. Huh??? And to this day, most exMormons I know simply don’t bother with removing their name because it is such a hassle, and so their names are still counted. The numbers are not correct.
The same incorrectness can be seen in the above numbers. I live in Alaska now, and I promise you, there are not that many Mormons here. There are a couple meetinghouses in my area (the fourth most populated area in Alaska), with each meetinghouse keeping about 100 – 150 members. Additionally, the temple is extremely small – another indication of small membership numbers. If I were being liberal with my guess, I’d say maybe there are 8,000 active, believing Mormons in Alaska…but I can’t see how there could even be that many, they simply don’t have that attendance.
The fact is, Mormonism isn’t true, so naturally it will decline as information becomes easier to access (thank you, internet!). The majority of the kids I grew up with are no longer Mormon, I think 2 out of the 10 kids in my YW class still believe, the rest of us did research. However, I’m sure 9/10 of us are counted as Mormons.
Heck, even the number of Mormons in Utah has dipped from the 90% range it held when I was a kid, to just above 50% today.
I think as a general rule, if Mormons are talking about their membership numbers, you can go ahead and cut about 75% off of the number they’re giving you and that way you will probably be closer to the truth.
The rate at which Christians were ignorantly converting to Mormonism in the1970s and 80s was based upon the misrepresentation by tens of thousands Mormon full-time missionaries that Mormonism was Christian in theology and doctrine. I was duped into joining the Mormon Church in 1970, in Texas, as a result of two Utah missionaries telling me lies about Mormon theology, doctrine, and history. If I had read what was published in 1984 by the LDS Church, “Lesson 21-Man May Become Like God,” the REAL polytheistic theology of Mormonism, from the 1984 LDS Melchizedek Priesthood Personal Study Guide, “Search These Commandments,” I would have realized that Mormonism was about as Christian as Buddhism. Mormonism was successful in its missionary efforts because its missionaries lied for the Mormon lord in order to conceal the facts about Mormon theology and doctrine. In the 19th Century, the Mormons lied about polygamy making people, especially Europeans and Scandinavians, believe Mormons only believed in monogamy. Here is a hyperlink to “Lesson 21-Man May Become Like God.” http://richkelsey.org/lesson21.html Publication of “Lesson 21” will certainly cause Christians, who are only Mormons in name, to leave the Mormon Church in great number, causing a diminution of Mormons around the USA.
Hey y’all, as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, I can firmly testify that Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost are three separate beings who each have their own separate purposes. God does love each of us individually, and I promise we are not a cult. If you’re saying we’re a cult, go look up the definition of a cult, and you’ll find that if you consider us a cult, basically everything is a cult. Also, please could you not tell us who we are? We know who we are and you can’t tell us otherwise. We do believe in Jesus Christ and that He did die on the cross for us. You’re welcome.
I agree. Also, Norton R. Nowlin, early leaders of the LDS church were polygamous, so I can understand your confusion, but, since the church’s founding in 1806, the church has made an adjustment to being against polygamy. This does not imply that LDS beliefs are wishy-washy, or watery, but rather that the leaders can realize an outdated practice is wrong, and are not afraid to change their doctrine based on modern revelations.
I believe that the almighty finds big churches displeasing. The problem is that the churchgoers start worshiping their church instead him.