Two years ago, I provided a list of the most populous urban agglomerations without an LDS presence. I wanted to update this list and make a few adjustments. City data retrieved for this post was retrieved from http://www.citypopulation.de/world/Agglomerations.html.
Below is a list of the 20 most populous urban agglomerations without a reportable LDS branch or ward provided with the most recent population estimate and world ranking. Cities located in countries without a known LDS presence are indicated in bold.
- Tehran, Iran - 13.6 million - 22nd
- Wuhan, China - 9.2 million - 36th
- Shenyang, China - 7.2 million - 45th
- Ahmadabad, India - 6.85 million - 49th
- Chongqing, China - 6.3 million - 54th
- Khartoum, Sudan - 5.15 million - 70th
- Surat, India - 5.05 million - 72nd
- Alexandria, Egypt - 4.8 million - 76th
- Shantou, China - 4.675 million - 79th
- Harbin, China - 4.625 million - 81st
- Chittagong, Bangladesh - 4.25 million - 90th
- Casablanca, Morocco - 4.125 million - 95th
- Kano, Nigeria - 3.8 million - 108th
- Dalian, China - 3.65 million - 112th
- Changchun, China - 3.575 million - 115th
- Jinan, China - 3.55 million - 116th
- Zhengzhou, China - 3.55 million - 116th
- Damascus, Syria - 3.45 million - 122nd
- Kanpur, India - 3.45 million - 122nd
- Algiers, Algeria - 3.375 million - 127th
- Tehran, Iran - 13.6 million - 22nd
- Ahmadabad, India - 6.85 million - 49th
- Khartoum, Sudan - 5.15 million - 70th
- Surat, India - 5.05 million - 72nd
- Alexandria, Egypt - 4.8 million - 76th
- Chittagong, Bangladesh - 4.25 million - 90th
- Casablanca, Morocco - 4.125 million - 95th
- Kano, Nigeria - 3.8 million - 108th
- Damascus, Syria - 3.45 million - 122nd
- Kanpur, India - 3.45 million - 122nd
- Algiers, Algeria - 3.375 million - 127th
- Jaipur, India - 3.325 million - 128th
- Lucknow, India - 3.275 million - 131st
- Meshed, Iran - 2.875 million - 147th
- Dakar, Senegal - 2.85 million - 148th
- Aleppo, Syria - 2.85 million - 148th
- Nagpur, India - 2.8 million - 154th
- Pyongyang, North Korea - 2.75 million - 156th
- Bamako, Mali - 2.55 million - 171st
- Tashkent, Uzbekistan - 2.55 million - 171st
This was a comment I wrote a while ago about new missionaries and their ages. I could not enter it from that PC at the time It may apply somewhat to this post about cities with no LDS presence, especially the ones that may legally allow LDS presence soon.
ReplyDelete"I agree with the sentiment about missionaries resonating in their homecountries and cultures. That happens with their investigators, too.Hopefully, once an elder or sister learns the Gospel of jesus Christmore fully in their own tongue and culture, that becomes more ingrainedto them. Some who go foreign missions get a lot (or a few cases less)from the foreign environment but don't apply enough of faith andsacrifice to their service to get as much out of it. Of course, everymissionary makes their mission what they put into to it no matter what.I talked to Spaniards in Caliornia who thought our most effectivemissionaries over there would be from Spain. I agree. A nice combinationof Europeans with foreigners would be so much more welcome than twocomplete outsiders. My best times in Chile were with another Chileanelder. Grafting in the gospel more effectively, I feel.And like I commented earlier in this stream, if we could retain more ofour RMs we would be so much more powerful as a faith, as wards andstakes. I would like to know what percentage of RMs go less active. Ithink it is really high in Chile, where I have lived twice after themission there. Also, like I said, I know too many returned missionariesfrom my home state of Indiana who came back and eventually fell awayfrom activity, and they live across the US and sometimes in foreignnations.But on an optimistic note, there is always good growth most places inthe world, albeit incremental in some tougher places."
There. I forwarded that to my email and I may not have posted it. If I did, it still apllies to this. Muslim countries and China, plus Myanmar and North Korea, not to mention Cuba, all are tough nuts to crack.
How would Havana rate on this list?
Do we have an LDS group there already?
There has been a branch in Havana, Cuba for several years now but it is quite small. The first member to serve a mission from the branch recently began his mission in the United States.
ReplyDeleteI'd be interested to see similar lists for North America and Europe, which aren't represented here.
ReplyDeleteThree big chunks of the world totalling half the world's population have next to no LDS presence at all, and overcoming the challenges in those chunks will be huge.
ReplyDeleteThe chunks? PR China, India, and "the Muslim world" (i.e. just about everything between Morocco and Indonesia, not counting India). Over 1 billion people in each, totalling about 3.5 B, or about half the earth's population. And apart from a few very tiny toeholds....
The reason North American and European agglomerations don't appear on the list is that every one of the 125 agglomerations of 1 million or more people in North America and Europe have an LDS presence. Many have temples, almost all have stakes--Athens perhaps being the largest without a stake, but there are two branches in Athens (both mission branches in the Greece Athens Mission).
ReplyDeleteThe largest city in the US without an LDS congregation is probably Port St. Lucie, FL (164,603), although Stuart, FL, is 10 miles away and is the home of both a stake and a ward, both of which cover Port St. Lucie.
The top ten cities in Pennsylvania without an LDS congregation are all suburbs of Philadelphia (5) or Pittsburgh (5).
In the US, at least, as well as much of Canada and Western Europe, the cities without an LDS congregation are mostly adjacent to and covered by a neighboring city.
Cumorah.com has maps of the top 10 cities without a congregation per country (State & Province in US/Canada)
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ReplyDeleteIn the case of my mission in Italy, two of the eight cities I served in have no Church presence. One has 100,000 people and the branch that serves it is sixty miles away - not exactly adjacent. I'm interested in what other places are like that.
ReplyDeleteCasablanca, Morocco has a branch for expatriate members but its location is not published.
ReplyDeleteI helped some Moroccan Muslims establish a branch in Casablanca in 2009 while working out of Shenzhen, China for Huawei. It grew from a few families until I lost touch in 2013 when there were over 60 members, all Muslim Moroccans. This doesn't include the over 30 members of the branch who had emigrated to France, UK and Canada so they could be baptized and the men be ordained to the priesthood. This a real limiting factor in Morocco---Muslims cannot leave Islam. It is against the law and they will be thrown in jail, if not killed according to the law. An equal, if not bigger issue is the lack of societal intolerance. I am sure others of the branch have left Morocco to progress in the Gospel.
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ReplyDeleteMy comment includes all of the 150 largest cities in the world that to the best of my knowledge, scanning google map site of branch and ward locations, and research into places where the church does not for political reasons in certain countries publish the locations of wards and branches, e.g., PRC, KSA, Syria, others. I have included a few examples where there is a presence in a metro area, but there are no local country nationals, just expats or third-country nationals. I have searched were there is a working group, but have sometimes may not have been successful. Having traveled much I have visited study groups or branches in Baku, Dhaka, Riyadh, Dubai, Jedda, Damascus, Pune; some still exist other don't and others I don't know. I have tried to double checked and sometimes triple checked the 47 metro population areas, over 30% of the 150 largest cities where there is no the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints presence. At 3.2M people we have the number 149 of the world's largest metro areas, so these are all big cities. This number of people is almost equal to the entire population of the state of Utah just for comparative purposes. By country or religiously the largest groupings cover over 90% of the largest 150 metro population areas: predominately Moslem cities---17; India---13; PR China---12. The population figures are taken from 2021 where available.
ReplyDeleteHere is the list:
1. Dhaka---23.4M. 4th largest city in the world
2. Cairo---20.2M. 7th
3. Tehran---12.9M 25th
4. Pune, IN---10.8M 32nd
5. Ahmedabad, IN---9.1M 45th
6. Baghdad---8.6M
7. Surat, IN---8.1M
8. Chittagong---7.7M
9. Riyadh---7.6M
10. Foshan, CH---7.6M
11. Shenyang, CH---7.5M
12. Kabul---6.9M
13. Khartoum---6.8M
14. Harbin, CH---6.6M
15. Jidda---5.9M
16. Belhai, CH---5.9M
17. Yangoon---5.8M
18. Alexandria---5.6M
19. Jinan, CH---5.6M
20. Algiers---5.5M
21. Casablanca---5.2M
22. Urumqi, CH---4.8M
23. Jaipur, IN---4.7M
24. Kanpur, IN---4.4M
25. Kano---4.2M
26. Hefei, CH---4.2M
27. Shijiazhuang, CH---4.1M
28. Mashhad---4.1
29. Calicut, IN---4.0M
30. Kallumpuram, IN---4.0M
31. Kochi, IN---3.9M
32. Lucknow, IN---3.9M
33. Tangshan, CH---3.8M
34. Pyongyang---3.7M
35. Aleppo---3.6M
36. Changzhou, CH---3.6M
37. Patna, IN---3.6M
38. Bekasi---3.6M
39. Nanchang, CH---3.5M
40. Thissur, IN---3.5M
41. Dubai-Sharjah---3.4M
42. S'ana---3.3M
43. Damascus---3.3M
44. Nagpur, IN---3.2M
45. Wuxi, CH---3.2M
46. Bursa---3.2M
47. Indore, IN---3.1M
Given the church's strategy of starting out with large cities there is plenty to work on here. Additional given that 50% of the world's population is urban as of 2016 and will grow to 70% by 2050 there is added emphasis to open these large urban areas. That is hope. Having been to half of these cities on this list over my life, it would be great to meeting with fellow saints instead of studying alone on the Sabbath days, whether Friday, Saturday or Sunday.
I was last in Dhaka three years ago. There was no branch or home group. There had been a branch in Dhaka in 2012 and 2014 when I visited on business from Shenzhen and Riyadh.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, the Riyadh branches are only expats--only westerns, mostly Americans. They cannot reach out due to legal and societal restrictions. No members from Saudi or from countries in the region. I do not count such branches in such hostile environments as a presence. The people with one or two exceptions are there for a few years, then leave.
I have just found that there are two branches in Cairo, one in English and one in Arabic. There are no Egyptian nationals who are members of these branches. There are some Egyptian members of the church in other countries.
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ReplyDeleteI have received a note from Dhaka that there continues to be a branch that started in 1993 that now has their own meeting house with about 80 members. Sometimes it takes time to get feedback from contacts.
ReplyDeleteMy real interest that we not worry so much about a town or a small cities in countries we already have plenty of membership and many membership, but it really focusing more of our efforts and prayers to those large urban areas where there is no native LDS presence. Having been to almost half of the cities on this list, I know that more outreach can be done in many of these cities, this is especially the case of the 13 cities on this list in India. It is more difficult where there are governmental restrictions such as China. The most difficult is were there are governmental and societal barriers to spreading the gospel, especially in most Muslim countries. Even in these predominately Muslim countries there are successes were there is less government barriers such as Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Tunisia and others.