The List: The Most & Least Religious US States

Countdowns
By published

A new Gallup survey reveals which U.S. states are most and least religious, with the South living up to its Bible Belt label, while other states were less likely to attend religious services.

The results are based on telephone interviews conducted between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2011, with a random sample of 353,492 adults, ages 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.

Read full story on the most and least religious U.S. states.

  • Mississippi: 59 percent are very religious
  • Utah: 57 percent
  • Alabama: 56 percent
  • Louisiana: 54 percent
  • Arkansas: 54 percent
  • South Carolina: 54 percent
  • Tennessee: 52 percent
  • North Carolina: 50 percent
  • Georgia: 48 percent
  • Oklahoma: 48 percent
  • Texas: 47 percent
  • Kentucky: 47 percent
  • South Dakota: 45 percent
  • Indiana: 45 percent
  • Missouri: 44 percent
  • North Dakota: 44 percent
  • Nebraska: 44 percent
  • West Virginia: 43 percent
  • Virginia: 42 percent
  • Idaho: 42 percent
  • New Mexico: 41 percent
  • Iowa: 41 percent
  • Minnesota: 40 percent
  • Pennsylvania: 40 percent
  • Ohio: 39 percent
  • Maryland: 39 percent
  • Florida: 39 percent
  • Illinois: 39 percent
  • Wisconsin: 37 percent
  • Michigan: 37 percent
  • Arizona: 35 percent
  • Montana: 35 percent
  • California: 35 percent
  • Wyoming: 34 percent
  • New Jersey: 34 percent
  • Delaware: 33 percent
  • Colorado: 33 percent
  • Hawaii: 33 percent
  • Rhode Island: 32 percent
  • New York: 32 percent
  • District of Columbia: 32 percent
  • Connecticut: 31 percent
  • Washington: 30 percent
  • Nevada: 30 percent
  • Oregon: 30 percent
  • Alaska: 28 percent
  • Massachusetts: 28 percent
  • Maine: 25 percent
  • Vermont: 23 percent are very religious
  • New Hampshire: 23 percent

Individuals who indicated that religion is an important part of their daily life and that they attend religious services every week or almost every week were classified as "very religious" by Gallup officials.

Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience and on Facebook.

Jeanna Bryner
Managing editor, Scientific American

Jeanna Bryner is managing editor of Scientific American. Previously she was editor in chief of Live Science and, prior to that, an editor at Scholastic's Science World magazine. Bryner has an English degree from Salisbury University, a master's degree in biogeochemistry and environmental sciences from the University of Maryland and a graduate science journalism degree from New York University. She has worked as a biologist in Florida, where she monitored wetlands and did field surveys for endangered species, including the gorgeous Florida Scrub Jay. She also received an ocean sciences journalism fellowship from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. She is a firm believer that science is for everyone and that just about everything can be viewed through the lens of science.

'It's answering one of the questions of the century': Scientists may finally know where the oldest gold in the universe came from

Doomed Soviet satellite from 1972 will tumble uncontrollably to Earth next week — and it could land almost anywhere

In rare evolutionary event, weird platypus cousin evolved from living in water to living on land

See more latest