Skip to main content

South Dakota Is More Religious Than The National Average

Email share
PBS

Follow @Nate_WekSDPB

Since 2007, America has become less religious. Every day less and less people are identifying themselves with a specific religion, as the national average is currently just shy of 49 percent, according to Sperling Views.

Almost 59 percent of South Dakota citizens (also according to Sperling Views) are religious, with a majority affiliating themselves with a Christian denomination. Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism are all represented in South Dakota as well, just not to the scale that Christianity is.

While the U.S. as a whole is still an overwhelmingly Christian country, there has been a notable drop in the number of Americans who call themselves such, and the number of people who don’t identify as any religion has risen dramatically. Jeffrey Brown talks to Alan Cooperman of the Pew Research Center, which conducted the latest survey, and Rev. Serene Jones of the Union Theological Seminary. This study concluded that 7 out of 10 Americans still consider themselves as Christians, making the national average of religous Americans to around 70 percent (according to the Pew Research Center).