Britain's religious history is a story of two established churches — the Church of England and the Church of Scotland — and you can still read that history in the buildings. Our directory holds 33,117 churches across the United Kingdom, each tied to a region. Sorted by tradition, they trace the old border between Anglican England and Presbyterian Scotland with surprising precision.
Key findings
- Anglican churches lead 313 regions — the Church of England, by a wide margin the most common specifically-identified tradition in Britain (15,781 churches).
- Presbyterian churches lead across Scotland (20 regions) — the Church of Scotland, "the Kirk," holding the line north of the border.
- No other tradition leads more than a single region — a level of establishment-church dominance unlike anything in the United States.
Anglican England, Presbyterian Scotland
The pattern is almost constitutional. Anglican (Church of England) churches are the leading specifically-identified tradition in 313 of Britain's regions, blanketing England from Cornwall to Northumberland with 15,781 parish churches and chapels. It is the most concentrated establishment-church footprint of any country in our data.
North of the border the map flips. In Scotland, where churches carry a specific label, it is overwhelmingly Presbyterian — the Church of Scotland, the national kirk born of the Reformation under John Knox. Twenty regions lead Presbyterian, almost all of them Scottish council areas. Two churches, two nations, one island.
The national leaderboard
| Denomination | Churches |
|---|---|
| Anglican / Episcopal (Church of England) | 15,781 |
| Presbyterian | 553 |
| Pentecostal | 430 |
| Latter-day Saints (LDS) | 204 |
| Seventh-day Adventist | 108 |
| Methodist | 63 |
Browse the full figures in our U.K. church statistics or the church directory. For the American counterpart of this map, see which denomination leads each U.S. state.
Comments