Statistics in the United States

Statistics relating to the Bahá’í community of the United States are relatively well-kept and accessible compared to Bahá’í communities of other countries, including statistics from both Bahá'í sources and third-party sources. No formal, general census was performed before the 1930s; membership figures before this time are the best estimates possible, based on the US Religious Census (information collected by the Bahá’ís based on various definitions of membership) and other historical estimates. Beginning in the 1940s, figures were occasionally published in Bahá’í News; in the 1970s, staff at the National Teaching Committee of the United States compiled the data from national membership records.

Although the Bahá’í community of the United States is a prominent one, it is by no means the largest. The official membership estimate in Sep 2006 was over 156,000 members on record, excluding Alaska and Hawai'i; by 2020, that number had grown to 176,000.

Membership

Definition

In an informal letter in 1998, Dr. Robert Stockman, the coordinator of the Research Office of the US Bahá’í National Center wrote:

“ The National Center, obviously, is not in the position to decide which cards were signed in good faith and which were not. The National Spiritual Assembly instituted a two-tier process about 1974, of (1) declaration, and (2) enrollment, the latter involving a meeting with the declarant to ascertain that the person understands what s/he is doing. The two-stage process was inaugurated because of abuses in mass-teaching campaigns during 1968-72. ”

Historical growth and development

Thornton Chase, a Chicago insurance manager considered to be the first American Bahá’í, declared his faith in 1894, not long after the first public mention of the Bahá’í Faith at the World's Parliament of Religions the previous year. From this beginning, the religion spread quickly and groups formed in cities across the country. An early religious census from 1906 reported 1,280 Bahá’ís. In 1909, the first National Convention was held, attended by 39 delegates from 36 cities throughout the United States and Canada. A 1916 survey estimated "something less than 2,500 believers".

The religious census of 1936, conducted by the United States government, reported 2,584 Bahá’ís in the country. Around the same time, the Bahá’í Historical Record Survey, an early demographic review of the Bahá’í community of the United States and Canada, took place. In 1944 every state in the nation had at least one local Bahá’í administrative body.

In December, 1999, the National Spiritual Assembly of the United States stated that out of the 140,000 adult (15 and over) members on the rolls, only 70,000 had known addresses [2]. It is reasonable to assume that affiliation on the part of some individuals disengaged from participation in the Bahá’í community over extended periods is open to question. The American Religious Identity Survey (ARIS) conducted in 2001, with a sample size of 50,000 for its total review of all religious experience in the study, estimated that there were 84,000 self identifying adult (21 and over) Baha'is in the United States.[3]

Counties of the United States with the highest proportion of Bahá’ís (2010).

The 2010 U.S. Religion Census conducted by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies was one of the first major surveys that indicated significant demographic penetration of the Bahá’í Faith in the United States. Based on the Census, it was found that the Bahá’í Faith constituted the largest "non-Christian" religious minority in the state of South Carolina. The Census recorded 1,130 Bahá’í "congregations" and 171,449 adherents spread across 2,532 counties in all 50 U.S. states, with significant penetration (i.e. 1% of the population or greater) in parts of South and North Carolina, Georgia, and South Dakota. The 2020 U.S. Religion Census identified the Bahá’í Faith as the largest non-Christian religion in a total of 1,708 U.S. counties, recording 983 "congregations" and 178,727 adherents in a geographical spread similar to that seen in 2010. The official Bahá’í membership estimate for the same year was 176,000.

Alaska

Alaska is unusual in that it is not an independent nation, recognized by the United Nations, and yet has a National Spiritual Assembly. Its specific statistics are not published, and are often not broken out in non-Bahá’í statistics of the USA in general. One source puts the 1992 combined membership in Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico combined at approximately 6000.

Hawai'i

The Hawaiian Bahá’í community began when Agnes Alexander became a Bahá’í in Paris in 1900 and returned to the islands in 1901. Similar to Alaska, the Bahá’ís of Hawai'i have an independent National Spiritual Assembly from that of the USA, though it is itself one of the 50 United States. Independent statistics have not published.