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What sources provide 2025 estimates of Muslim populations by US metro area (Pew, MAPS, local studies)?
Executive Summary
Major public-data sources offer estimates of U.S. Muslim populations at national and state levels, but metro-area 2025 estimates are uneven: Pew’s 2024–25 surveys describe demographics but do not release metro-by-metro 2025 counts, MAPS/Association publications supply detailed metro and county rankings based on the 1980–2020 Religion Census and related compilations, and local studies or specialized projections supply ad hoc metro estimates or long-range scenarios. The practical picture is that researchers must combine Pew’s recent national survey findings with MAPS/ASARB county/metro compilations and selective local studies to construct 2025 metro-area estimates [1] [2] [3].
1. Where the major public-data threads converge — and where they don’t
Pew Research Center’s 2024–26-era work furnishes the most recent, nationally representative survey portrait of U.S. Muslims — their size, age, race, religious practice and trends — but Pew’s recent releases do not present a systematic 2025 metro-area population table; they emphasize national and demographic slices [1] [4]. By contrast, the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies (ASARB) and MAPS-style compilations provide geographic granularity to the county and metro level but are rooted in the 1980–2020 Religion Census and related aggregation, meaning their most detailed public ranking reflects 2020-era counts or methodological extrapolations rather than an explicit 2025 census-style estimate [2] [3]. Researchers looking for a ready-made authoritative 2025 metro list therefore face a gap: Pew supplies up-to-date demographic context while MAPS/ASARB supply place-level detail but lag in year-specific population totals [1] [2].
2. Who is producing metro estimates and how they differ
Three producer types dominate metro-level work: national survey organizations (Pew), religious-body aggregators and MAPS-style academic projects, and local/regional studies. Pew offers timely, methodologically transparent national surveys and projections that can be reweighted or downscaled to metros only with additional modeling [1]. MAPS/ASARB-style compilations list metro and county rankings drawn from congregation counts and membership tallies aggregated across denominations; these provide relative rankings and percent-of-population measures more readily than contemporary headcounts [2] [3]. Local studies — municipal, university, or community-researcher reports — supply boutique 2025 or near-2025 estimates for specific metros, often using mosque registries, school enrollment, and immigration records; these are powerful for local planning but vary in transparency and coverage, and sometimes reflect organizational agendas [5] [6].
3. Recent publications to use as primary inputs for 2025 metro estimates
For building a defensible 2025 metro estimate, start with Pew’s June 2025 demographic report for national prevalence and subgroup structure, then align that with ASARB/MAPS metro rankings to allocate population by place; where available, substitute or calibrate with local 2023–2025 studies for specific metros [1] [2] [7]. The 2023 PRRI county-level dataset remains useful for cross-checks in counties lacking mosque registries; the MAPS/ASARB quicklists updated through 2025 supply percent-of-population rankings useful for proportional allocation [7] [2]. When projects or planners have higher stakes — electoral analysis, service provision — combining these three streams and documenting uncertainty is the accepted practice [1] [2].
4. How methodology shapes divergent metro numbers — watch these traps
Differences across sources stem from definition choices (who counts as Muslim: self-identifying adults vs. congregational adherents vs. ancestry or household members), temporal baselines (2020 Religion Census vs. 2024–25 surveys), and models for allocating national totals to metros (proportional to congregation counts, immigration flows, or survey reweighting). MAPS-type lists rely on organizational data that can undercount unaffiliated or private-practice Muslims, while Pew’s survey-based national total risks sampling noise when downscaled to smaller metros [2] [1]. Local studies sometimes inflate counts for advocacy or undercount marginalized groups lacking mosque affiliation; these agenda signals should be flagged when using those figures for policy or media claims [5] [6].
5. Practical recipe and final assessment for a 2025 metro estimate
To produce a defensible 2025 metro breakdown, use Pew’s 2024–25 demographic totals as the national anchor, apply MAPS/ASARB metro rankings and county-level shares to allocate population spatially, and then incorporate vetted local study adjustments where recent, transparent methods exist. Document all assumptions, indicate margins of error, and treat any single-source metro count as provisional given the methodological trade-offs described above [1] [2] [3]. The combined approach aligns the best recent national data with the most granular geographic information available, while acknowledging that no single public source currently publishes a definitive, standalone “2025 Muslim population by U.S. metro area” table [1] [2].