Metropolitan Areas With The Most Stakes

One of the greatest strengths to the Church is when many Church members live in the same city. When concentrated in a particular geographic place, members of the Church are usually more easily able to fellowship one another and help build up the Church through living the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Close proximity and large populations allows for the Church to preach the Gospel message to a greater number of people in a shorter amount of time than in rural areas, where more time is spent traveling from place to place to teach fewer individuals and families. Members of the Church concentrated in cities also facilitates the building and operation of temples and the creation of stakes.

There are 36 cities in the world with at least 10 stakes in their metropolitan areas. Out of these 36 cities only two do not have a temple: Fortaleza, Brazil (which has 13 stakes) and Pocatello, Idaho (which has 11 stakes). There are some interesting comparisons we can make with the data below. For instance, if the ratio of stakes to population in Mexico City were the same as Salt Lake City, there would be a total of 2,804 stakes in Mexico City which is about how many stakes there are in the entire Church. Another interesting hypothetical situation is if the ratio of stakes to population in Salt Lake City were the same as the ratio of stakes to population in Mexico City there would be only three stakes in Salt Lake City!

Some of the metropolitan area populations are estimated (particularly for Utah) due to the large number of small towns in their peripheries. Most of the population data comes from http://www.citypopulation.de/ or Census Bureau estimates. Most suburbs or neighboring cities less than 30 or so miles away from the named metropolitan city are included in metropolitan population and stake numbers. What constitutes a metropolitan area is up to debate, but is best to be thought of as a conglomeration of urban neighborhoods and population centers.

Click on the table below to view.