General Assignment | Daily Report

An analysis of user-generated content placed onto Google maps shows a lot of references to the Baptist faith in placemarks located on top of California. The map, produced by floatingsheep.org, parsed out religious references from Google placemarks to create maps of Christianity.

The United States largely breaks out as expected, with the South strongly referencing the Baptist faith, the mountain states referencing the Mormon faith, a large concentration of Lutheran references in the upper Midwest and a large concentration of Catholic references in the North East.

California ended up a Neapolitan mix of dots, but with a decent number of Catholic references along the coast and Baptist references in the interior of the state. What appears to be the Los Angeles area has a pocket of Presbyterian references. Take a look at the map and see how you feel this rendering of the virtual world reflects the real world.

While the Census is prohibited from tracking religious affiliation, the Association of Religion Data Archives at the University of Pennsylvania maintains some data. Here's their quick breakdown of religious traditions in California:

• Catholics: 10,079,310 adherents or 29.8 percent of the population. The most adherents of any other state followed by New York (7,550,491 or 39.8 percent of the population)
   
• Evangelical Protestants: 2,450,003 adherents or 7.2 percent of the population. The second most adherents of any state behind Texas (5,084,656 or 24.4 percent of the population
   
• Mainline Protestant: 1,118,209 adherents or 3.3 percent of the population
   
• Judaism: 994,000 adherents or 2.9 percent of the population. The second most adherents of any state behind New York (1,653,870 or 8.7 percent of the population)
   
• Islam: 259,762 adherents or 0.8 percent of the population. The most adherents of any other state followed by New York (223,968 or 1.2 percent of the population)
   
• Orthodox Church: 142,752 adherents or 0.4 percent of the population. The most adherents of any other state followed by New York (119,895 or 0.6 percent of the population)