Adherents.com presents:

The Largest Communities of Jehovah's Witnesses

Interesting Fact: In the United States, the Jehovah's Witnesses have more meeting places/congregations than any other denomination (religious body).

The national-level data for Jehovah's Witnesses presented on this page come from their own yearly reports. Jehovah's Witness records are known to be exceptionally precise and reliable. But it should be kept in mind that these figures are based on "average monthly publishers," i.e. the average through the year of monthly counts of "publishers." Publishers are Jehovah's Witnesses in good standing who have submitted a report indicating they have performed the minimum number of proselyting hours during the month.

This standard for being counted as a "member" means the Jehovah's Witness statistics are perhaps the most conservative figures presented by any religious group. A more realistic measure of how many "adherents" the group has can probably be obtained by looking at their Memorial attendance figures. These figures are simply the count of people at their yearly communion meeting. Attendance at a yearly meeting may not seem like a high standard for being counted as an adherent, but it is actually the standard used by groups such as Anglicans to issue estimates of "active" membership.

In practice, a large number of people counted in Memorial attendance figures but not counted as publishers may simply be guests or investigators. But an even larger number are people who consider themselves Jehovah's Witnesses, but aren't currently fulfilling duties required to be counted as a publisher. Roughly speaking, one can either look at the Memorial attendance figures, or double the number of publishers they announce, in order to estimate the number of people in a region who consider themselves part of the religion.

It may also be noted that Jehovah's Witness reports summarize data based on "lands" and not strictly by nations as defined by the United Nations. In fact, Hawaii and Alaska are still listed separately from the United States. This practice is consistent with Witness theology which recognizes no nations or political entities other than the kingdom of God.


Top 20 Lands with Highest Proportion of
Jehovah's Witnesses (Publishers), 1998

LandNumber of
publishers		Percent
Saint Helena 160 3.19%
Guadeloupe 7,953 1.94
Niue 35 1.68
Saint Eustatius 19 1.27
Saint Maarten 285 1.19
Martinique 4,054 1.13
Curaco 1,552 1.06
Zambia 104,096 1.03
Virgin Islands (British) 159 0.94
Barbados 2,375 0.91
French Guiana 1,485 0.91
Tahiti 1,933 0.88
Norfolk Island 16 0.85
New Caledonia 1,676 0.84
Cuba 82,258 0.74
Turks and Caicos Islands 117 0.72
Cook Islands 135 0.71
Puerto Rico 26,727 0.70
San Marino 178 0.70
Bermuda 431 0.70


Source: Watchtower Society annual report, 1998.

Top 20 Lands with
Most Jehovah's Witnesses (Publishers), 1998

LandNumber
of
publishers		Percent
USA 1,050,238 0.39%
Mexico 518,307 0.54
Brazil 487,661 0.30
Italy 232,145 0.40
Japan 222,912 0.18
Nigeria 222,306 0.21
Germany 171,704 0.21
Britain 131,981 0.23
Philippines 128,134 0.18
Poland 126,635 0.33
Argentina 121,829 0.37
France 121,498 0.21
Canada 113,136 0.37
Zaire
(Democratic
Republic
of Congo)		 108,710 0.22
Zambia 104,096 1.03
Spain 103,784 0.26
Ukraine 101,755 0.20
Colombia 100,488 0.25
Russia 100,012 0.07
South Korea 85,983 0.19


Source: Watchtower Society annual report, 1998.

Countries on both lists (highest percent and highest number of Witnesses): Zambia.

Conceivably, this could mean that Zambia is the world's most JW nation. Cuba almost appears on both lists, as it is ranked 15th in percentage of Jehovah's Witnesses, and 22nd in number.

Top 20 U.S. States with Highest Proportion of
Jehovah's Witnesses (self-identification), 1990

These figures represent people who cited Jehovah's Witnesses when asked to name their religion, in a nationwide phone survey of 113,000 people. These figures are perhaps twice the level of active "publishers", but this can not be confirmed because state-level statistics from the organization are not available.

StatePercent
New Hampshire 1.90%
Washington 1.40
Idaho 1.20
New Mexico 1.20
California 1.10
Oregon 1.10
Arizona 1.00
Iowa 1.00
Mississippi 1.00
New York 1.00
Delaware 0.90
Florida 0.90
Georgia 0.90
Maryland 0.90
Michigan 0.90
New Jersey 0.90
Ohio 0.90
Montana 0.80
North Carolina 0.80
South Carolina 0.80


This data set is from the 1990 National Survey of Religious Identification, conducted by the City University of New York, based on self-identification, as collected through a nationwide phone survey of 113,000 people.

Source: Kosmin, Barry A. and Seymour P. Lachman. One Nation Under God: Religion in Contemporary American Society; Harmony Books: New York (1993), pg. 88-93.



Copyright (C) 1999 by Preston Hunter. Last updated 2 May 1999.
Return to the "Largest Religious Communities" index page