I just received my annual copy of the Church Almanac for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) and am struck by just how precise it is when it comes to counting its worldwide membership.
Let’s start with the statistical profile at the start. It says total membership as of Jan 1, 2009, was 13,508,509. That’s pretty specific for a headcount that exceeds the population of many of the world’s countries.
Membership in the United States — the birthplace of the Mormon faith — was put at 5,974,041. Mexico has the second largest national membership at 2,092,389. It would seem no rounding up or down with these folks though total membership in South America was a nice roundish 3,278,400.
In Africa, a growth area for Christianity and Islam, the flock was put at 280,828. The Middle East is a region where, unsurprisingly, the Mormons have made little headway. There the faith’s numbers were put at 3,161.
On a national level, it is only when the number falls below 100 that an exact figure is not used. So, just looking at some of the Ls, one finds church membership in Latvia of 1,025, in Lesotho 606, in Liberia 5,039 and in Liechtenstein “fewer than 100.”
