Culture and Society 29 Jun 2026 3 min read

We Mapped 516,513 Churches Across 14 Countries. Here's What the Data Reveals.

By Thomas Anderson · EncuentraIglesias editorial team

Over the past months we built something no single church, census, or denomination has: a unified, geolocated map of 516,513 churches across 14 countries. Counting buildings instead of believers turns out to reveal patterns that surveys blur — and a few things that surprised even us. Here is what half a million churches say about religion across the Western world.

We Mapped 516,513 Churches Across 14 Countries. Here's What the Data Reveals.

Five things the data reveals

America is the most denominationally fragmented country on the map. Only about 14% of its specifically-identified churches are Catholic — Baptists lead 26 states.
Italy and Spain are Catholic monoliths: roughly 98% of their specifically-identified churches are Catholic.
Germany is split down the Reformation line — Catholic south and west, Lutheran north and across all five former-East states.
Britain is a tale of two established churches: Anglican across England, Presbyterian across Scotland.
In France and Canada, the open data records almost no denomination at all (close to 100% generic) — a reminder that this map is only as detailed as the data beneath it.

The same data, four different countries

The most striking result is how differently each country's faith is shaped. In the United States, no single tradition dominates — Baptists, Methodists, Catholics and Lutherans each rule their own region. Cross the Atlantic and the picture consolidates: Germany divides cleanly Catholic-versus-Lutheran along a line drawn in 1555; Britain runs Anglican in England and Presbyterian in Scotland; and Mexico stays overwhelmingly Catholic except in its southeast, where the evangelical map takes hold.

Churches per country

Churches in the EncuentraIglesias directory, by country
Country	Churches
United States	212,260
Germany	54,975
France	46,874
Italy	45,409
Brazil	36,201
United Kingdom	33,117
Canada	29,542
Spain	27,579
Mexico	11,783
Argentina	6,397
Colombia	4,727
Chile	3,307
Peru	3,150
Ireland	1,192
Total	516,513

Why we count buildings

Surveys ask people what they believe; they are essential, but memory and identity are slippery. A church building is a fact on the ground — someone bought the land, raised the roof, and registered the address. Counting them gives an independent, physical measure of where religious life is organized, neighborhood by neighborhood. It cannot tell you how full the pews are. But it can show you the shape of the faith map in a way no survey can, and it can do it at the granularity of a single street.

How we counted. Figures come from the EncuentraIglesias directory (built from OpenStreetMap data plus our own enrichment), a snapshot of 516,513 churches across 14 countries as of June 2026. We measure church buildings and congregations, not membership or attendance. Denominational completeness varies sharply by country — from richly tagged (Spain, Italy, the U.S.) to almost entirely generic (France, Canada) — so cross-country denominational comparisons are made only where the data supports them, and always among the churches that carry a specific tradition. This is a living map of recorded houses of worship, an independent complement to survey-based studies of belief.

Free to cite. Journalists, researchers and writers may reproduce these figures with attribution to EncuentraIglesias and a link to this page. Want the numbers for a specific country, state or city? Explore our church statistics by country.

Published: 29 Jun 2026
Category: Culture and Society

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Frequently Asked Questions

How many churches are in the EncuentraIglesias directory?

516,513 churches across 14 countries (the United States, Germany, France, Italy, Brazil, the United Kingdom, Canada, Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Peru and Ireland), as of June 2026 — each geolocated and, where the data allows, classified by denomination.

Which country has the most churches?

The United States, with 212,260 churches in our directory — more than the next three countries (Germany, France and Italy) combined.

Which countries are the most Catholic by church count?

Among churches with a specific denomination recorded, Italy and Spain are near-monoliths at roughly 98% Catholic. The United States is the opposite — its specifically-identified churches are only about 14% Catholic, with Baptists leading the most states.

Are these belief statistics?

No. We count church buildings and congregations by location, not membership, attendance or survey-reported belief. It is a physical map of where religious life is organized, meant as an independent complement to survey-based research.