Catholic Churches in New York: 2,264 Congregations Mapped by County and City

New York holds 2,264 Catholic parishes and institutions in the Churches List directory, the deepest Catholic bench of any state: 9 percent of the nation's 25,275 Catholic listings, spread across 755 New York cities and towns. 39 of them carry National Register listings, the largest register-listed Catholic set in this series, and 1,076 publish websites.

Brooklyn alone holds 152 Catholic listings, more than most entire states; Manhattan's New York City page adds 104, the Bronx 77. Upstate, Buffalo (75) and Rochester (69) anchor the old industrial dioceses.

Which New York cities have the most Catholic churches?

The city distribution tells two stories at once. Downstate, the immigrant church: Brooklyn, Manhattan, the Bronx, Flushing, and Staten Island together hold over 400 parishes built parish-by-parish as each wave arrived — Irish, German, Italian, Polish, and now Spanish-speaking and Chinese congregations often sharing the same buildings. Upstate, the mill-town church: Buffalo's 75 and Rochester's 69 mark dioceses built for industrial cities, now consolidating but still dense beyond any non-Catholic comparison.

A selection of Catholic congregations across New York

The table holds 60 of the 2,264 Catholic congregations listed in New York, selected for record completeness. The Catholic tradition page and the New York state page hold the complete lists.

Where Catholic congregations stand in New York: the map

How Catholic's New York footprint compares nationally

New York's 2,264 leads this directory's Catholic geography, ahead of Pennsylvania's 1,792; the two states together hold one in six American Catholic listings. The contrast inside the tradition is generational: the Northeast holds the parish stock, while Catholic growth now runs through Texas and the Southwest. New York's 39 register-listed Catholic churches — out of the state's 306 register churches overall — document the building campaign that made the American Catholic skyline.

How this map was assembled

Counts come from the Churches List directory snapshot of June 11, 2026: 2,264 congregations in New York carry the Catholic tradition label, out of 25,275 nationwide and 12,739 New York churches of all traditions. Tradition labels derive from each congregation's source records and self-description; 1,076 of the New York listings carry a website. The directory does not rank congregations. Corrections are applied through the corrections page.

Related reading in The Letter: the New York State Catholic network and pre-Civil War Catholic New York go deeper on this geography, the New York City guide covers the Manhattan core, and Pennsylvania's 1,792 parishes holds second place. The Catholic tradition page lists all 25,275 parishes nationwide.