San Luis Obispo County, California has 244 churches in the Churches List directory, 6 of them verified and 99 with a published website. The 2020 US Religion Census counted 229 congregations and 109,047 adherents across 58 religious bodies in the county. That is 386 adherents per 1,000 residents of its 282,443 people.
| Religious body | Congregations | Adherents | Per 1,000 pop. |
|---|---|---|---|
| Catholic Church | 15 | 57,298 | 202.9 |
| Non-denominational Christian Churches | 29 | 15,470 | 54.8 |
| Jehovah's Witnesses | 26 | 6,276 | 22.2 |
| Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints | 9 | 5,247 | 18.6 |
| Church of the Nazarene | 6 | 3,964 | 14.0 |
| Foursquare Gospel, International Church of the | 4 | 2,388 | 8.5 |
| Vineyard USA | 6 | 1,726 | 6.1 |
| Seventh-day Adventist Church | 6 | 1,709 | 6.1 |
| United Methodist Church | 6 | 1,419 | 5.0 |
| Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod | 4 | 1,301 | 4.6 |
| Mahayana Buddhist | 2 | 1,275 | 4.5 |
| Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) | 5 | 1,158 | 4.1 |
Source: 2020 US Religion Census (Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies). Per-1,000 rates divide reported adherents by the county's 2020 Census population (282,443). Largest 12 bodies by adherents shown.
"Helping people find & follow Jesus. We are one church family that meets on multiple campuses across the Central Coast. Our San Luis Obispo Campus is our historic campus is downtow...
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Saint Anne Byzantine Catholic Church is a Catholic Christian parish of the Byzantine Ruthenian Tradition located in the City of San Luis Obispo, California. It was founded in 1986....
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Directory traditions here: Non-Denominational (30) · Baptist Churches (26) · Catholic (21) · Church of Christ (16) · Foursquare (11) · Presbyterian (10) · Lutheran (10) · Community (10) · Assemblies of God (9) · United Methodist (8)
Church registers are among the richest genealogical sources: baptisms, marriages, and burials often predate civil records. The FamilySearch catalog holds microfilmed church records for many California counties, filed by denomination and parish name: search San Luis Obispo County church records on FamilySearch (free account). Cross-reference with the historic-register churches above and the cemeteries listed on each church's page.
FEMA has issued 28 disaster declarations covering San Luis Obispo County since records began in 1953, most recently in 2024. The most frequent cause: flood (10 declarations). Churches have historically served as shelters and relief hubs in these events; congregations can register preparedness plans with their county emergency management agency.
Source: OpenFEMA Disaster Declarations Summaries.
Directory listings are mapped to San Luis Obispo County through the US Census Bureau's 2020 ZCTA-to-county relationship file: each ZIP Code Tabulation Area is assigned to the county holding the largest share of its land area, so a small number of churches in ZIP codes that straddle county lines may be attributed to a neighboring county. Congregation and adherent counts come from the 2020 US Religion Census and are reported by the religious bodies themselves. Population is the county's April 2020 decennial-census base from the US Census Bureau's population-estimates program; per-1,000 adherence rates divide reported adherents by that figure. Corrections to any listing go through the corrections page.