page_title: Maryland
section_title: Religion
hierarchical_section_title: Maryland / Demographics / Religion
caption_attribution_description: English: A more recent photo of the restored Baltimore Basilica. This is an image of a place or building that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places in the United States of America. Its reference number is 69000330
context_page_description: Maryland is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the Southeastern United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. The state's largest city is Baltimore, and its capital is Annapolis. Among its occasional nicknames are Old Line State, the Free State, and the Chesapeake Bay State. It is named after the English queen Henrietta Maria, known in England as Queen Mary, who was the wife of King Charles I.
  Sixteen of Maryland's twenty-three counties, as well as the city of Baltimore, border the tidal waters of the Chesapeake Bay estuary and its many tributaries, which combined total more than 4,000 miles of shoreline. Although one of the smallest states in the U.S., it features a variety of climates and topographical features that have earned it the moniker of America in Miniature. In a similar vein, Maryland's geography, culture, and history combine elements of the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, and South Atlantic regions of the country.
context_section_description: Maryland has been historically prominent to American Catholic tradition because the English colony of Maryland was intended by George Calvert as a haven for English Catholics. Baltimore was the seat of the first Catholic bishop in the U.S. (1789), and Emmitsburg was the home and burial place of the first American-born citizen to be canonized, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. Georgetown University, the first Catholic University, was founded in 1789 in what was then part of Maryland. The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in Baltimore was the first Roman Catholic cathedral built in the United States, and the Archbishop of Baltimore is, albeit without formal primacy, the United States' quasi-primate, and often a cardinal. Among the immigrants of the 19th and 20th century from eastern and southern Europe were many Catholics.
  Despite its historic relevance to the Catholic Church in the United States, the percentage of Catholics in the state of Maryland is below the national average of 20%. Demographically, both Protestants and those identifying no religion are more numerous than Catholics.
  According to Pew research 69 percent of Maryland's population identifies as Christian. The largest religious groups in Maryland as of 2010 were the Catholic Church with 837,338 adherents in Maryland, followed by non-denominational Evangelical Protestants with 298,921 members, and the United Methodist Church with 238,774. The Southern Baptist Convention has 150,345 members. Amish/Mennonite communities are found in St. Mary's, Garrett, and Cecil counties. Judaism is the largest non-Christian religion in Maryland with 241,000 adherents, or four percent of the total population. Jews are numerous throughout Montgomery County and in Pikesville and Owings Mills northwest of Baltimore. An estimated 81,500 Jewish Americans live in Montgomery County, constituting approximately 10% of the total population. The Seventh-day Adventist Church's world headquarters and Ahmadiyya Muslims' national headquarters are located in Silver Spring, just outside the District of Columbia.
caption: The Baltimore Basilica was the first Catholic cathedral built in the U.S.
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D200", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop 7.0", "Image DateTime": "2007:06:12 11:57:36", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ReferenceBlackWhite": "[0, 255, 0, 255, 0, 255]", "Image ExifOffset": "292", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 2, 0, 0]", "Image GPSInfo": "884", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "998", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "8463", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/160", "EXIF FNumber": "8", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Manual", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "125", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2007:04:20 12:39:11", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2007:04:20 12:39:11", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Spot", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "17", "EXIF SubSecTime": "47", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "47", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "47", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1200", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1112", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[0, 2, 0, 2, 1, 0, 2, 1]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "25", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Hard", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}