A new poll revealed that residents of the state of Utah had the highest church attendance in the United States in 2014.
Contrasting Utah is the state of Vermont, which had one of the lowest attendance figures in the entire country during the previous year.
These are the results of the latest poll conducted by polling agency Gallup. which asked over 177,000 adults of various faith how often they attend religious services in their church, synagogue or mosque.
Utah and the Southern states have the highest figures in church attendance with almost half of the respondents in that area reporting weekly attendance in religious services. By contrast, only a quarter of the respondents in the Northeastern and Western are reporting the same.
At the end of the year, the poll showed that 51 per cent of the correspondents in the state of Utah reported going to church "at least once a week." On the other hand, the state of Vermont had the lowest turnout, with only 17 per cent of the correspondents reported going to church at least one day in the week.
The five states following Utah with the highest church attendance are: Mississippi (47%), Alabama (46%), Louisiana (46%), Arkansas (45%) and South Carolina (42%).
The churches with the lowest figures for attendance in religious services after Vermont are: New Hampshire (20%), Maine (20%), Massachusetts (22%), Washington (24%), and Oregon (24%).
Gallup also noted that five of the six states in the New England area are among the states with the lowest figures for attendance in religious services.
"The state-by-state variations in church attendance are significant because attendance is a powerful indicator of underlying religiosity, which in turn is related to Americans' views on life, culture, society in general and politics," Gallup pointed out.
While self reports are only estimates, the agency said that it is an "important measure of the way in which Americans view their personal, underlying religiosity."
Gallup said the results of the 2014 study back up President Barack Obama's claim that the United States is the most religious country in the world, even more religious than "most Western developed countries," but the findings reveal discrepencies depending on geographic location.
