Sunday, October 18, 2009

Countries With The Most Members With Only One Temple

Shortly after I began this blog I made a post about the five countries with the largest memberships with only one temple. I wanted to update this list since temples were recently announced in three nations which used to only have one temple: Argentina, Chile and Peru. Below is an updated list with membership totals provided by the Church as of the end of 2008. Stake and district totals are current.
  1. Ecuador - 185,663 (34 stakes, 9 districts)
  2. Colombia - 163,764 (28 stakes, 12 districts)
  3. Bolivia - 163,119 (24 stakes, 10 districts)
  4. Venezuela - 144,089 (26 stakes, 9 districts)
  5. Honduras - 131,098 (20 stakes, 9 districts)
Each of these countries have at least one other city which may have a temple announced. It should be noted that most other Latin American nations did not receive an announcement of a second temple until their memberships were more than double Ecuador's current membership (the nation which currently has the largest membership with one temple). Furthermore the temples in each of these countries are centrally located for members, as have the first temples for many Latin American countries. The temple in Honduras is not even built yet and just began construction. Unless the Church initiates a more aggressive temple building program similar to the late 1990s, these nations will likely not receive a second temple until membership increases dramatically in number and activity.
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6 comments:

  1. RayOctober 18, 2009 at 2:48 PM

    Great analysis. Thank you! Another way to look at temple usage is to examine the total stakes and districts in each temple district.

    Some temples have far more stakes and districts than others, such as the Manilla Temple with 169 (79 stakes and 90 districts) and the Guatemala Temple with 122 (85 stakes and 37 districts).

    Both of these have new temples under construction nearby that will greatly reduce the total stakes and districts per temple district in the near future, although the Philippines will still have about 85 per temple district.

    The biggest number of stakes in any one temple district recently was 112 stakes in the Jordan River Temple District until the Draper and Oquirrh Mountain temples came online recently.

    The current biggest temple districts now are the Ogden Temple, 77 stakes, and the Mesa Temple, 76 stakes. Again, both of these have new temples planned or being built nearby, with the Mesa Temple having 3 new temples built within its district.

    Some temple districts are tiny, like the Colonia Juarez district with 2 stakes, 2 districts, and 12 wards and 17 branches total for the district.

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  2. RayOctober 18, 2009 at 2:51 PM

    Also the Buenos Aires Temple district with 89 (60 stakes and 29 districts). There will be a new Argentine Temple soon that will reduce those numbers.

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  3. GnesileahOctober 18, 2009 at 6:07 PM

    And don't forget the Lima Perú Temple District, which currently includes 90 stakes and 24 districts. The Lima temple is also the second smallest temple in the church, at a mere 9,600 square feet. Only the Colonia Juárez Chihuahua México Temple is smaller, at 6,800 square feet. The Trujillo Perú Temple was announced last December.

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  4. DanielOctober 18, 2009 at 7:03 PM

    Matt, you can do a posting about what area have the highest of lowest membership to stake or temple ratio. It would obviously be the lowest in the inter mountain west, europe, and the pacific, and it would probably be the highest (stake wise) for Asia. I have noticed that the actual numbers nescessary for a temple in asia (outside the phillipines) is actually much lower than in other parts of the world. I guess this is due to distance.

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  5. TempleRickOctober 19, 2009 at 10:16 AM

    This Temple District Summary, sorted on number of stakes, gives a nice snapshot of temple district size. Note the size of the México City México Temple District, which does not have a new temple announced within its boundaries like many of the others do such as Lima, Guatemala City, Santiago, Manila, Ogden, and Mesa. Most other temple districts in Mexico are much smaller. A temple announcement for Puebla or another section of the Mexico City metropolitan area seems probable.

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  6. AlexApril 3, 2016 at 11:08 AM

    This list is now getting old (yay!) with the Quito, Ecuador temple announced and the Barranquilla, Colombia temple under construction.

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