Unchurched Belt

The Unchurched Belt is a region of the US that has low rates of religious participation. The term derives from Bible Belt and the idea of the unchurched. The belt was originally found in the West and Northwestern United States, but has moved over the decades.

The term was first applied to the West Coast of the United States in 1985 by Rodney Stark and William Sims Bainbridge, who found that California, Oregon, and Washington had the lowest church membership rates in the U.S. in 1971, and that there was little change in this pattern between 1971 and 1980. Since 1980, however, California's church membership rate has increased; in 2000, the state had a higher percentage of church members than several states in the Northeast and Midwest. Some religious groups are undercounted in surveys of religious membership.