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The Largest Unitarian Universalist Communities


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Top 10 U.S. states with highest percentage of
affiliated Unitarian Universalists in the population, 1990

StateNumber
of Members		Percent
Massachusetts 35,787 0.59%
New Hampshire 4,189 0.38
Vermont 2,056 0.37
Maine 4,152 0.34
Delaware 1,453 0.22
Rhode Island 1,661 0.17
Maryland 6,255 0.13
Minnesota 5,669 0.13
Connecticut 4,167 0.13
Oregon 3,252 0.11

Top 10 U.S. states with most
affiliated Unitarian Universalists, 1990

StateNumber
of Members		Percent
Massachusetts 35,787 0.59%
California 14,740 0.05
New York 13,648 0.08
Illinois 8,194 0.07
Ohio 6,531 0.06
Pennsylvania 6,455 0.05
Maryland 6,255 0.13
Virginia 6,119 0.10
Texas 5,843 0.03
Minnesota 5,669 0.13


States on both lists (Highest Number and Highest Percent): Massachusetts, Minnesota.


Source: Churches and Church Membership in the United States, 1990, published by the Glenmary Research Center, P.O. Box 507, Mars Hill, NC 28754. Principle investigator: Church Growth Research Center, Church of the Nazarene, Kansas City, MO. This data source was obtained from the American Religion Data Archive.

Top 10 U.S. States with Highest Proportion of
Unitarian Universalists
(self identification), 1990

StatePercent
Vermont 1.10%
New Hampshire 0.90
Massachusetts 0.80
Colorado 0.70
Maine 0.60
Nebraska 0.50
Washington 0.50
California 0.40
Idaho 0.40
Illinois 0.40
Kansas 0.40
Minnesota 0.40
Oregon 0.40
Rhode Island 0.40

Figures are based on self-identification of religious loyalty, using representative sample of 113,000 people in phone interviews, conducted by City University of New York. Respondents were asked to name their religious preference; this does not necessarily mean they are on church rolls.

It should be noted that even with such a large national sample size, the total number of Unitarian Universalists was so small that for some states with small populations, the estimated proportion was based on a statistically unreliable number of respondents. For these smaller states, the estimated proportion of adherents in the state population may not be accurate.

What probably is reliable from the Kosmin data is that it verifies the relatively higher proportion of Unitarian Universalists in the state populations of Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Maine. These four states are among the top 5 states with the highest proportion of UUers on both the Glenmary (organizational reporting) and Kosmin (self-identification) lists.

Interestingly enough, in 1990 about three times as many Americans said they were Unitarian Universalists as were actually on organization rolls for the same year. Apparently a large group of Americans consider themselves in some way to be Unitarian Universalists, but are not officially affiliated with the organization. It is probably that their financial and manpower contributions, if any, are minimal to the Unitarian Universalist Association. But their self-identification as members should not be discounted as it may indicate such things as continuing denominational loyalty or empathy with general UU philosophy.

Source: Kosmin, Barry A. and Seymour P. Lachman. One Nation Under God: Religion in Contemporary American Society; Harmony Books: New York (1993), pg. 88-93. Table 3-1: Religious Composition of State Populations, 1990 (In Percent).

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Created 23 April 1999. Last updated 30 September 2000.