Churches List A Directory of American Churches
State statistics · updated June 2026

How many churches are in North Carolina?

North Carolina has 16,249 church listings in the Churches List directory, spread across 742 cities and towns. 383 listings are verified, 15,888 include a phone number, and 4,861 publish a website. The 2020 US Religion Census counted 16,177 congregations of 192 religious bodies in North Carolina, with 5,441,989 reported adherents across 100 counties. 118 North Carolina church buildings hold National Register of Historic Places listings@if ($wayback > 0), and 42 of the state's church websites were already archived by the Internet Archive before 2001@endif.

16,249
Directory listings
16,177
2020 Census congregations
5,441,989
2020 Census adherents
118
NRHP churches
NC capital N
№ 01

Largest religious bodies in North Carolina (2020 US Religion Census)

Religious body Congregations Adherents
Southern Baptist Convention 4,374 1,324,747
Non-denominational Christian Churches 2,354 1,053,564
Catholic Church 198 928,735
United Methodist Church 1,800 595,636
Muslim Estimate 70 130,661
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) 616 129,110
National Missionary Baptist Convention, Inc. 429 119,228
African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church 574 110,503
Jehovah's Witnesses 434 105,874
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 175 89,083
Episcopal Church 237 74,210
Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee) 452 68,675
Assemblies of God 281 51,450
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America 188 50,782
National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. 87 45,323
№ 02

Largest traditions in the North Carolina directory

Tradition Listings
Baptist Churches 5,772
Non-Denominational 1,959
Methodist 1,462
United Methodist 757
Church of God 619
Presbyterian 563
Pentecostal 408
African Methodist Episcopal 379
Evangelical 375
Church of Christ 374
Christian 330
Episcopal 316
Lutheran 296
Catholic 269
Holiness 261
Where the churches are

North Carolina cities with the most listings

North Carolina counties

Sources and method

Directory figures are live counts from the Churches List database for North Carolina (NC) as of June 2026. Congregations and adherents come from the 2020 US Religion Census, a county-level enumeration reported by religious bodies and aggregated here to the state; its methodology differs from a directory count and the two will not match. Historic-register counts join National Register of Historic Places listings to directory churches. Statistics for other states: Texas · California · Pennsylvania · Ohio · Florida · Illinois · Georgia · New York · Michigan · Tennessee. See also the national statistics page, the North Carolina directory, and dataset licensing.