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religionMaster Score

Score

Religious Pluralism

Higher when no religious or non-adherent worldview group is unusually dominant relative to the national mix.

Scale0-100

Higher values rank better for this score.

How It's Calculated

The latest published score is normalized to a 0-100 scale. The method below explains what the score rewards, with technical source metadata available for audit.

Scoring Method

How the ranking is built

Religious Pluralism rewards counties where no religious or non-adherent worldview group is unusually dominant relative to the national mix.

  1. 1

    For each group, the scorer computes max(0, local population share - national population share).

  2. 2

    Each excess is multiplied by 1 minus the national group share, so dominance by a nationally small group is treated as more socially distinctive.

  3. 3

    The final score is 100 minus the weighted dominance penalty across Catholic, LDS/Mormon, Jewish, Muslim, other non-Christian, other Christian, and unaffiliated/non-adherent groups.

Technical details
Score TypeMaster Score

Read from the current master score table for this criterion.

Ranking BasisSingle Score

The top 10 below ignore your blended relocation weights and sort only by Religious Pluralism.

No source details available for this score.

What This Score Means

Religious Pluralism rewards counties where no religious or non-adherent worldview group is unusually dominant relative to the national mix.

Statistics Feeding This Score

  • Broad religion groups

    Catholic, LDS/Mormon, Jewish, Muslim, other non-Christian, and other Christian adherent shares of county population.

    Source: 2020 U.S. Religion Census
  • Unaffiliated / non-adherent share

    County population not counted as religious adherents in the U.S. Religion Census.

    Source: 2020 U.S. Religion Census
  • Dominance penalty

    Excess local group share above the national share, weighted by the national share outside that group.

    Source: Derived from U.S. Religion Census inputs

Source Data

Source: 2020 U.S. Religion CensusCounty-level congregations and adherents by religious body, grouped into broad religion categories for place-level social-culture proxies.

Known Limits

  • Religion scores use county-level U.S. Religion Census records assigned to each place by representative point, so they can miss neighborhood variation and multi-county city patterns.
  • USRC adherents are reported by religious bodies and are not identical to personal belief, current practice, survey self-identification, or social belonging.
  • The unaffiliated group means people not counted as religious adherents by USRC, not a direct survey measure of no religion.
  • Use these as social-culture proxies, not as value judgments about any religious or non-religious community.

Top 10 Locations

Ranked by Religious Pluralism.

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