- Bahrain - 170
- Bermuda - 156
- Bonaire - 78
- British Virgin Islands - 150
- Burkina Faso - 6
- Burundi - 409
- Chad - 5
- Djibouti - 2
- Equatorial Guinea - 2
- Falkland Islands - 10
- Gabon - 19
- Gibraltar - 16
- Greenland - 15
- Guinea - 14
- Guinea-Bissau - 45
- Kosovo - 50
- Kuwait - 267
- Mali - 10
- Mauritania - 2
- Montenegro - 5
- Morocco - 85
- Niger - 5
- Oman - 78
- Qatar - 548
- Senegal - 13
- Seychelles - 3
- The Gambia - 19
- Turks and Caicos Islands - 92
- United Arab Emirates - 1,286
- UK - England - 145,385
- UK - Northern Ireland - 5,297
- UK - Scotland - 26,598
- UK - Wales - 9,491
Monday, May 26, 2014
Year-end 2013 Membership Data For Additional Countries
See below for additional year-end 2013 membership data for many countries not currently listed on the Church's official statistics page.
Does anyone have any thoughts as to the disproportionately higher percentage of members in Scotland as compared to the rest of the United Kingdom? If anything, I would have expected the Church to be stronger (percentage-wise) in England, as this is the historic base for the Church in the UK; there are two temples located there; more jobs to attract members from other parts of the UK (and beyond); and more immigrants which tends to provide a larger conversion pool. England, Wales, and Northern Ireland are all within a 10% deviation from the National Average for %LDS, but Scotland almost has a 70% deviation. Are the cultural differences in Scotland really so great as to make the people that much more receptive to the Gospel? What other factors might be at play here?
ReplyDeletePart -- Population (2011) -- LDS Membership (31 Dec 2013) -- % LDS -- Deviation from National Average
England -- 53,012,456 -- 145,385 -- 0.27% -- (7.2%)
Scotland -- 5,295,000 -- 26,598 -- 0.50% -- 69.9%
Wales -- 3,063,456 -- 9,491 -- 0.31% -- 4.8%
Northern Ireland -- 1,810,863 -- 5,297 -- 0.29% -- (1.0%)
United Kingdom -- 63,182,000 -- 186,771 -- 0.30% -- N/A
They were presbyters, or priests, so I think they understand the priesthood better. And better knowledge of Anglicanism.
ReplyDeleteI was a missionary in England in 1980 – at the same time Scotland went from 2 to 5 stakes and had around 12 000 members. There was a lot of excitement about Scotland – now 34 years later, there are still 5 stakes with 26 500 members. I understand that there are a total of 26 wards and 9 branches. There must be a very high percentage of inactives. Does anyone know the strength of the church in Scotland now compared with 34 years ago?
ReplyDeleteThe Akeikoi 1st and 2nd, Ile Verte, and Plaque wards, Abobo Cote d'Ivoire Stake, were created on 25 May. There are now 12 wards in the stake:
ReplyDeleteAbobo Ward
Agbekoi Ward
Agoueto Ward
Akeikoi 1st Ward
Akeikoi 2nd Ward
Anonkoua Ward
Anyama Ward
Ile Verte Ward
M'Ponon Ward
Plaque Ward
Quatre Etages Ward
Sagbe Ward
The Cloudcroft Branch, Las Cruces New Mexico Stake, was created on 18 May. There are now 10 wards and 3 branches in the stake:
Desert Hills Ward
Doña Ana Ward
Las Colinas Ward
Las Cruces University Ward (Student Single)
Mesilla Valley Ward
Miranda Ward (Spanish)
Picacho Ward
Rio Grande Ward
Sacramento Mountains Ward
White Sands Ward
Cloudcroft Branch
Hatch Branch
Truth or Consequences Branch
The Kayole 2nd Ward, Nairobi Kenya Stake, was created on 25 May. There are now 11 wards and 3 branches in the stake:
Athi River Ward
Kayole 1st Ward
Kayole 2nd Ward
Lucky Summer Ward
Mountain View Ward
Nairobi 2nd Ward
Nairobi 1st Ward
Riruta Ward
Upper Hill Ward
Westlands Ward
Zimmerman Ward
Kitengela Branch
Langata Branch
Ongata Rongai Branch
The Lake Crescent Ward, Orlando Florida South Stake, was created on 25 May. There are now 10 wards and 1 branch in the stake:
Buena Vista YSA Ward
Bumby Ward
Conway Ward
Lake Crescent Ward
Lake Reams Ward
Ocoee Ward
Olympia Ward
Windermere Ward
Windy Ridge Ward (Spanish)
Winter Garden Ward
Semoran Branch (Spanish)
The Paragominas Branch, Brazil Belém Mission, was created on 18 May. There are now 5 independent branches in the mission:
Barcarena Brazil District
Brazil Belém Mission Branch
Canaã dos Carajás Branch
Marabá Branch
Paragominas Branch
Parauapebas Branch
Four wards created in one stake in one day. Wow!
ReplyDeleteThe Church used to break out statistics for the four UK countries separately, like they do for US states and Canadian provinces. I wish they continued to do so.
ReplyDeleteMatt, I am impressed you were able to get all these year end statistics. Thanks.
Minor point. There are 26 wards and 13 branches in Scotland. That doesn't change the question. I don't have an answer.
ReplyDeleteScotland is an interesting case, a lot of the missionary success is contained in Glasgow and Edinburgh, primarily through the Chinese work. However, although they have members join the church, and serve missions, many ultimately move back to China. Amongst the native Scottish populace, there have been problems with rushed baptisms and high mission baptismal goal that have resulted in unprepared candidates (I saw signs with missionaries saying baptism 300 next to their candidate, etc). There has also been a strong migration of members to England, the last three Preston temple presidents have been Scottish, and many members move to the temple area to be temple workers. Combined with diminished socio-economic conditions in Scotland (only certain industries are doing well), I am not surprised the total membership and congregational figures have not increased much. As to why it might be a larger than normal percentage, I know that members in Scotland still have incredibly large families, one of the largest families in Britain (12 children) is a Scottish LDS family.
ReplyDeleteIf the Scottish missions had a history of being more aggressive than their English counterparts, that could explain a lot, but typically those policies don't carry from one mission president to the next (i.e. the English missions would be just as likely to get an overly aggressive mission president come through the rotation at some point). Cultural attitudes towards religion certainly make a big difference when going from a nearly atheist Europe to a very God-fearing Africa, so I can definitely see a small impact going from Anglican England to Presbytarian Scotland (and we are talking about a relative small difference in the two LDS rates, but it's a big enough difference that it is statistically significant). I don't know enough about the differences between those two faith traditions to know what kind of an impact it would have, but that makes sense.
ReplyDeleteI don't think a higher birth rate in Scotland would affect the percentage LDS that much as compared to England. Deomographic studies in the US show that LDS fertility rates are higher than the non-LDS population, but track that population closely. If fertility rates in England are lower than Scotland, LDS rates will probably also be a little lower, but the difference in the birth rates between the LDS and non-LDS populations will probably remain about the same across the two countries, leaving the % LDS figure largely unaffected. Of course there are a lot of assumptions in that line of reasoning. We'd really need some solid demographic data on the LDS population in the UK, and I'm not sure that is available.
I do wonder about the potential impact of the economic factors though. Right now Scotland's economy is actually doing relatively well, with a 7.3% unemployment rate (7.9% for the UK), and 8.4% of the UK population, but 9.9% of the UK's economic output. However, a lot of these numbers are skewed by oil and gas. If I'm not mistaken, hisorically (the last 40 years or so) Scotland looks more like Northern England, with a declining manufacturing base.
For comparison purposes, North West England (home to the Preston temple, and the only region with an LDS MP--David Rutley) has an 8.2% unemloyment rate, 11% of the population of the UK, but only 9% of the economic output. It would be interesting to compare some of these factors against the LDS populations for the different regions in England, but that information is probably hard to get.
\The Calavi Branch, Cotonou Benin District, Benin Cotonou Mission, was created on 25 May. There are now 11 branches in the district:
ReplyDeleteAibatin Branch
Akpakpa Branch
Avotrou Branch
Calavi Branch
Cococodji Branch
Fidjrosse Branch
Finagnon Branch
Gbedjromede Branch
Gbegame Branch
Jericho Branch
Menontin Branch
The Glen Allan Ward, Edmonton Alberta Bonnie Doon Stake, was created on 25 May. There are now 10 wards and 3 branches in the stake:
Cherry Grove Ward
Clarkdale Ward
Connors Hill Ward
Forest Heights Ward
Fort Saskatchewan Ward
Glen Allan Ward
Highlands YSA Ward
Mill Creek YSA Ward
Nottingham Ward
Strathcona Married Student Ward
Lloydminster Branch
Tofield Branch
Vermilion Branch
The Kontoloh Branch, Kissy Sierra Leone District, Sierra Leone Freetown Mission, was created on 18 May. There are now 6 branches in the district:
Kissy 1st Branch
Kissy 2nd Branch
Kontoloh Branch
Thunderhill Branch
Wellington 1st Branch
Wellington 2nd Branch
Fascinating numbers for the Middle East and West Africa, thanks Matt! I continue to pray that the issues and concerns the Africa West leadership have for expanding into the northwest may be resolved sooner than later.
ReplyDeleteIt's too bad that the unit growth in Scotland has been relatively stagnant in the last few decades compared to new members added. Emigration would explain a lot. Like in a lot of places, it is possible to add new membership and not get the "traction of the load" to evoke the reference of Elder Bednar in his talk about carrying a heavier load, and being able to make progress better that way.
ReplyDeleteLike places where I have noted good baptisms but not as much commensurate unit growth, the priesthood has to be more active at overall activity.
I wish we were all better at it: better deacons, teachers, priests and elders. And high priests.
As everyone who follows this blog is probably well aware, it is really hard to know actual activity rates, but I ran a couple more numbers and Scotland doesn't seem to deviate as much as the raw membership number makes it look, but it is still a bit of an anomally.
ReplyDeleteAssuming this allocation of congregations (I don't have access to a good source for these, so I just tried to count Wales and Norther Ireland on the map and subtract to get England's number):
England -- 262
Scotland -- 39
Wales -- 22
No. Ireland -- 11
United Kingdom -- 334
Here are the average number of members per congregation followed by the % deviation from the national average:
England -- 555 -- (0.77%)
Scotland -- 682 -- 21.96%
Wales -- 431 -- (22.85%)
No. Ireland -- 482 -- (13.89%)
United Kingdom -- 559 -- 0.00%
Using members per congregation as a proxy for identifying relative activity, it appears that Scotland has a significantly higher number of members on the rolls for each congregation, which means that while they were disproportionately successful in intially attracting more members, they were also disproportionately poor at keeping them active. What this number doesn't show is whether the disproportionate member attraction was more or less significant than the disproportionate member attrition. That will be looked at below.
Before addressing that though, I just want to point out that the Wales and Northern Ireland numbers are disproportionately low. This is probably better explained by several small branches that cover a large rural area than actual higher rates of activity, but without more data it is hard to be certain.
Now, thinking a little broader, I was initially surprised that the % LDS in Scotland was so much higher than the % LDS in England, but as that didn't take activity into consideration, here is another way to look at the numbers.
This is the raw population per congregation followed by the % deviation from the national average:
England -- 202,338 -- 6.96%
Scotland -- 135,769 -- (28.23%)
Wales -- 139,248 -- (26.39%)
No. Ireland -- 164,624 -- (12.97%)
United Kingdom -- 189,168 -- 0.00%
Looking at it this way, Scotland appears to have redeemed itself. Despite lower member retention rates, the net gain in active membership as a % of the population appears to still have been high enough to make their congregation to population penetration the highest in the UK, and significantly higher than that of England (at least statistically speaking).
Now Scotland has the same rural congregation issue that Wales and Northern Ireland have, so it is hard to tell how much sustaining this many congregations really reflects higher numbers of active members there, but the discrepency is high enough (over 30% when comparing to England directly) that overall it looks like Scotland is still the most LDS place in the UK, both in terms of raw membership and active membership.
I appreciate all of the suggestions as to what factors made Scotland disproportionately successful, as well as some of the factors that tempered that success. Both are fascinating issues to study, which is one of the reasons I like this blog.
Just so there isn't any confustion as to what I was claiming when I said "most LDS place in the UK, both in terms of raw membership and active membership," I meant both numbers in terms of percentages of the total population. I still consider England the core for the Church in the UK in terms of actual numbers. That's why England has two temples.
ReplyDeleteLikewise, I would say Tonga is the most LDS country in the world, for both active members and raw member count if we talk percentages, but the U.S. is still the most LDS in actual numbers.
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ReplyDeleteI understand. England dominates the United Kingdom with 84% of the population. Scotland is 2nd with 8.4%.
ReplyDelete36 stakes in England
5 stakes in Scotland (plus 4 mission branches)
3 stakes in Wales (including the Chester England Stake--Stake Center and 6 of 8 units in Wales and CDOL lists 3 stakes in Wales)
1 in Northern Ireland.
Some say England has no government. But, every UK ministry has a list of functions, each of which are specified to be effective in:
UK overall
Great Britain
England, Wales and Northern Ireland
England and Wales
England
Scotland
Wales
Northern Ireland.
The Scottish, Welsh, and Northern Ireland offices have functions exclusively in their respective counties.
8 UK ministries have function that are almost entirely (if not entirely) for England only or for England and Wales. 82% of the members of parliament are from England.
Great news for the Church in Vietnam.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/church-reaches-milestone-vietnam
"
The Vietnamese government has officially recognized what is known as the Interim Representative Committee of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Vietnam. This Interim Representative Committee consists of three Vietnamese Church leaders (the Hanoi district president and the two Ho Chi Minh City branch presidents). Vietnam’s government has given this Interim Representative Committee national recognized legal standing to represent the Church in Vietnam. "
England has 36 stakes, with 234 wards and 28 branches, for a total of 262 congregations
ReplyDeleteNorthern Ireland has 1 stakes, with 8wards and 3 branches, for a total of 11 congregations
Scotland has 5 stakes, with 26wards and 13 branches, for a total of 39 congregations
Wales has 3 stakes, with 17wards and 5 branches, for a total of 22 congregations
About the Vietnam recognition, I have a story from fast and testimony meeting today. There was a short lull in bearing testimonies and I looked over to where our sister missionaries were sitting with two less active sisters they had been teaching. I felt strongly, "go testify to the sisters sitting with the sister missionaries." I had not planned to bear my testimony and as I walked forward, I was thinking about what I would say. I started a fairly routine testimony and then my mind went blank and saw in my mind's eye the picture of the three branch presidents with the Vietnamese minister of religion. I then bore testimony of the work spreading throughout the world and mentioned the recognition of the Church by Vietnam and that when I was growing up with the Vietnam War going on, I would never have dreamed that would happen. As I walked back to my seat, I thought "I failed in that mission, why did I talk about Vietnam. I was supposed to testify to those sisters."
ReplyDeleteLater in the meeting, both of the sisters with the sister missionaries got up to bear their testimonies. One sister said she had intended to remain under the radar, but when the brother was speaking about Vietnam she suddenly felt prompted to get up herself. Recently, she had been in China on assignment for the Marine Corps and had met the people and had conversations about religion with them. That had led her to start wanting to come back to the Church.
The missionary elders told me right after Sacrament "you said the right thing that sister needed."
Awesome, Mike.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! Now, your personalized Priesthood Line of Authority is beautifully laminated featuring the classic portrait of Jesus Christ by the renowned artist Greg Olsen.
ReplyDeleteI think one factor in Scotland may be that at times it had two missions. England has 10 times the population, so to be similar England would have needed on the order of 20 missions. At most England has ever had 7 missions, and I am not sure if it has ever had more than 6, and those cover not only England but Wales.
ReplyDeleteOn the issue of Scotland going from 2 to 5 stakes in the early 1980s but no new stakes since, it seems at times stakes get created pretty thin, especially when advanced from districts, so lack of new stakes since might not be as bad a sign as it seems.
On the other hand, I live in Michigan where we have 8 stakes, the last created in December of 1979, before I was born. I remember 20 years ago people would say that the growth of the Church in the city of Detroit would result in a new stake in the next decade, and I felt that was a long time.
Now, with another ward covering part of Detroit and the inner suburbs disolved in the last few months, I am trying to see the vision of a new stake, but it seems to be further than in the past.
The fact that I know a member in Detroit who at least at some level feels the only hope she has of raising her children to be active in the Church is to move out of the state is discouraging.
We need to build the networks of faith here, not seek for it in Utah as she sometimes speaks of. Although I have to agree with her goal of getting her oldest daughter to go to BYU.
I think our problem here is we have to an extent figured out how to baptize African-Americans, but we have not figured out how to fully intergrate them into the Church. There have been a few families I knew who without question exemplified integrating African-Americans into the Church, one was of the white man who as a single served as branch president of one of the Urban branches formed in the 1990s in Detroit. He got married to one of the African-American sisters in the branch. They have since moved out of Michigan. In fact, most of the couples I can think of along these lines have left the state.
Of course, the fact that Michigan lost popualtion from 2000-2010 does not help us. More so, because the Church leadership in Michigan still comes disproportionately from outsiders here for primarily employment reasons, who tend to be the first to leave when the economy tanks.
I think one factor in Scotland may be that at times it had two missions. England has 10 times the population, so to be similar England would have needed on the order of 20 missions. At most England has ever had 7 missions, and I am not sure if it has ever had more than 6, and those cover not only England but Wales.
ReplyDeleteOn the issue of Scotland going from 2 to 5 stakes in the early 1980s but no new stakes since, it seems at times stakes get created pretty thin, especially when advanced from districts, so lack of new stakes since might not be as bad a sign as it seems.
On the other hand, I live in Michigan where we have 8 stakes, the last created in December of 1979, before I was born. I remember 20 years ago people would say that the growth of the Church in the city of Detroit would result in a new stake in the next decade, and I felt that was a long time.
Now, with another ward covering part of Detroit and the inner suburbs disolved in the last few months, I am trying to see the vision of a new stake, but it seems to be further than in the past.
The fact that I know a member in Detroit who at least at some level feels the only hope she has of raising her children to be active in the Church is to move out of the state is discouraging.
We need to build the networks of faith here, not seek for it in Utah as she sometimes speaks of. Although I have to agree with her goal of getting her oldest daughter to go to BYU.
I think our problem here is we have to an extent figured out how to baptize African-Americans, but we have not figured out how to fully intergrate them into the Church. There have been a few families I knew who without question exemplified integrating African-Americans into the Church, one was of the white man who as a single served as branch president of one of the Urban branches formed in the 1990s in Detroit. He got married to one of the African-American sisters in the branch. They have since moved out of Michigan. In fact, most of the couples I can think of along these lines have left the state.
Of course, the fact that Michigan lost popualtion from 2000-2010 does not help us. More so, because the Church leadership in Michigan still comes disproportionately from outsiders here for primarily employment reasons, who tend to be the first to leave when the economy tanks.