Religion in The United States

American’s religious beliefs are constantly changing. Though it has varied from year to year, Americans overall are becoming less and less across denominations religious, according to historical Gallup Polls. Over the past 30 years, the number of Americans who identify as non-religious has increased from 8 percent of the population in 1982 to 14 percent in 2012. Similarly, those identifying as Protestants has decreased from 56 percent in 1982 to 41 percent in 2012. Catholics had a smaller decrease in identification, going from 29 percent in 1982 to 23 percent in 2012. This graph visualizes these trends through showing the downward sloping trend of identification for Catholics and Protestants while simultaneously showing that Americans are now more likely to identify as non-religious.

The bar graph shows at the results of a recent Gallup poll on the importance of religion in the United States. The poll surveyed residents living in metropolitan areas across the country to find the most and least religious metro-areas in the country. The Provo-Orem metropolitan area in Utah had the highest percentage of very religious citizens at 77 percent.  Boulder, CO and Burlington, VT tied for the least religious metropolitan areas in the United States with only 17 percent of citizens identifying as highly religious.  

The pie chart shows the current religious beliefs of Americans in terms of importance of religion, according to the same Gallup Poll. Forty percent of Americans identify as very religious- meaning religion plays a role in their daily lives and they attend religious services regularly. Americans who identify as moderately religious-meaning religion is important but religious services aren't regularly attended- make up 29 percent of the population. In contrast, 31 percent of Americans identified as nonreligious meaning they don’t believe religious is important in their lives.