Alabama closely trails Mississippi as the most religious state in the United States, according to Gallup’s 2015 state-by-state analysis published Feb. 4.
Mississippi claimed the top spot for the ninth year in a row with 63 percent classified as very religious followed by Alabama at 57 percent.
Gallup classified Americans into three religious groups: very religious, moderately religious and nonreligious. Very religious Americans say religion is important to them and attend services every week or almost every week. Moderately religious Americans meet just one of the criteria, either saying religion is important or that they attend services almost every week or more. Nonreligious Americans say religion is not very important and seldom or never attend religious services.
Also joining Mississippi and Alabama as the most religious states are Utah (55 percent), Louisiana (54 percent), Tennessee (53 percent), Arkansas (52 percent), Georgia (51 percent), South Carolina (51 percent), North Carolina (49 percent), Kentucky (47 percent) and Texas (47 percent).
On the other hand, New Hampshire edged out Vermont as the least religious state with 20 percent of its population classified as very religious as opposed to Vermont’s 22 percent.
Following Vermont on the list of least religious states are Maine (26 percent), Massachusetts (27 percent), Oregon (29 percent), Washington (29 percent), Hawaii (30 percent), Rhode Island (32 percent), New York (32 percent), Alaska (32 percent) and Wyoming (32 percent).
The survey found that across the U.S., 40 percent of Americans are very religious, 29 percent are somewhat religious and 31 percent are nonreligious.
As has been the case since Gallup began tracking religious indicators in 2008, the least religious states are generally those in the two northern corners of the country, whereas the most religious states continue to be in the South, along with Utah.
(Gallup, TAB)
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