A Daily Yonder analysis reports that rural areas in the United States are more likely to have evangelical Christianity as their most common Christian tradition, but that does not necessarily mean rural residents are more religious than people in cities or suburbs.

The finding complicates a familiar political and cultural claim about religiosity in rural America, where roadside displays such as large crosses in the American South and other rural areas are often treated as signs of stronger religious commitment. The distinction matters because the most common Christian tradition in a county and the share of residents who participate in religious life are related but separate measures. A place can have a more evangelical religious landscape without showing higher overall religious adherence than large metropolitan areas.

The article also notes that supporters of President Donald Trump have frequently contrasted rural religious identity with urban areas they describe as “3rd world country” or “hellhole” cities, including in social media posts such as https://x.com/iAnonPatriot/status/2079633804273074615.

Trump has also criticized cities by citing claims about “soaring” housing costs, “diseases … spreading like wildfire,” and assertions that “police can’t handle the surge in crime” after being “flooded … with migrants ....”

At the same time, some MAGA-aligned commentators have claimed that Christianity is experiencing a resurgence among Gen Z, including assertions that young people are attending evangelical churches in large numbers. But the Daily Yonder report says recent claims of a broad “surge” appear to be overstated, and survey data does not show rural areas holding a clear advantage over urban areas in religious adherence.

“In the majority of nonmetropolitan, or rural, counties, the most popular Christian tradition is evangelicalism, according to an analysis of data from the U.S. Religion Census, a county-level, once-per-decade dataset that reports the number of congregations and adherents in American faith groups. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that rural people are more religious than their urban and suburban counterparts,” the Daily Yonder reported.

According to the analysis, evangelicals make up a disproportionate share of the population in nonmetropolitan counties. Roughly 20 percent of evangelicals live in rural counties. Sarah Alexander Melotte, the Daily Yonder writer cited in the report, said that pattern does not mean religious intensity is higher in rural communities.

“You might think that means nonmetropolitan residents are more religious, but that’s actually not the case,” Melotte said. She explained that the analysis measures “religiosity” as the share of the population that regularly attends religious services. The U.S. Religion Census functions as a count of congregations and adherents rather than an individual survey of belief, enthusiasm, or self-described commitment, making it useful for comparing religious affiliation and institutional presence but limited as a measure of personal faith.

“The nation’s largest cities actually had the highest religious adherence rates, making up just about half of the population in metropolitan counties with populations greater than one million residents,” Melotte wrote. “The overall religious adherence rate in nonmetropolitan counties was 48 percent, meanwhile.”

Melotte said the differences are small and within the margin of error, leaving little basis for concluding that rural Americans are necessarily more religious than urban or suburban residents. The data instead indicates that rural counties are more likely to be evangelical, rather than clearly more religious overall.